EU Overcomes Trump’s Power Divide And Big Tech

Like conflicts between President Donald Trump and Europe continue to stand firm, the continent is accelerating its pace limiting adoption of US technology. Cities and municipalities are abandoning Microsoft Office for open source alternatives, switching to European Cloud Hosting about Local AIand moving security data to non-American systems affected. Nowhere has this been more evident than in France.

In the past few months, the French government has accelerated its efforts to develop and transfer its technology to public authorities. The country, without a doubt, came out ahead of the development of digital technology in Europe, which aims to reduce dependence on US technology in terms of data security, the uncertainty of the Trump administration, and changing prices. French finance minister David Amiel recently to be invited that the government “break free” from the American system and use those it can control.

“We’re not just stating what we want to do,” said Stéphanie Schaer, the agency’s executive director DINUMFrance’s digital transformation ministry tells WIRED in a call on the country’s video calling platform Visio. “We already did it in a few cases.” At the moment, more than 40,000 employees of the French government will start using the growing video from home, while the rest will leave Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and others by the year 2027. “We have enough confidence to use it every day and we don’t rely on just one player who will tell us that you should use my video conference,” says Schaer.

In all of France’s central institutions and many public institutions, officials are planning to change some of the French, European, and information technology strategies in the coming years. Schaer says it is important for the French government to control the technology it uses, and keep the data in the country, not abroad.

As part of this, DINUM has been developing production tools, called “LaSuite,” since at least 2023. As well as Visio, it includes the instant messaging program Tchap, Messagerie instead of Gmail or Outlook, Fichiers for documents and file sharing, including programs to change messages. Docsand Grist for spreadsheets. Some of these programs are still in beta and have not been fully delivered to the French authorities. However, Tchap already has 420,000 users, Schaer says, and 20,000 government employees who receive it every month.

“We adopt open source software. So we don’t develop all the code,” says Schaer. There are plans for all people the new Appearancealthough the code is published on Microsoft’s proprietary Github. All data processed by other means must be processed in France and stored by agents licensed by the country’s cybersecurity agency. MASAMO. Earlier this month, the Dutch government moved its open source code from GitHub and on the Forgejo event with public servers.

Although open source is important, the French government is also working with other countries and private companies to develop its tools. “We’re able to reuse what’s created by the community and we contribute to the community,” Schaer says. For example, Visio, which can receive calls for up to 150 people and has AI-generated voice, was developed with technology from French companies Outscale and Pyannote.

Although Schaer’s department wants to lead by example, all central government agencies in France must come forward. plans out of US technology—in office software, antivirus, AI, databases, and more—this fall. On April 23, French authorities also announced that the country will transfer its healthcare platform from Microsoft to local cloud provider Scaleway, after many years.