“Imagine that you have a set of diamonds that you put away in a chest, in a country of your choice. If, one day, this country decides that you can no longer access your vault, you will still own your diamonds, but you will no longer have the use of them. This is what happens with our data when we put it in the cloud. They still belong to us, but we have no control over them.describes Philippe Latombe, deputy for Vendée and rapporteur for the fact-finding mission “Building and promoting national and European digital sovereignty” to the National Assembly.
Mastering data is the main issue of sovereignty, because it is on these that our economy is now based. Reindustrialisation, recovery, the fight against global warming will only be sustainable if we digitize our activities. “And, for that, we need to control the data, to be able to process and store it. Without this control, our economy is in danger”warns the deputy.
The Covid-19 pandemic, the growing geopolitical tensions between the United States, China, Russia and Europe since Donald Trump’s term of office, the undermining of multilateralism and the war in Ukraine are all subjects which made Europe aware of its industrial and economic dependencies. And led it to ask itself this question: whether it is a matter of strategic autonomy or industrial sovereignty, does it have the assets and the power that would allow it to maintain or regain control of its systems? of information and communication, and especially its data, this raw material of our activities? Yes, answer many actors. Like the think tank Digital New Deal (DND), which defends “a third way”that of“a humanist, European digital, alternative to the American libertarian and Chinese authoritarian models, which imposes its values by making trust the global norm”.
Today, the importance of digital sovereignty is no longer debated. “The stakes are as much economic as strategic and now geopolitical, but also ethical and democratic.emphasizes Michel Paulin, CEO of OVHcloud, they are at least as important for our future as energy issues. » As proof, even Germany now speaks, through the voice of its Chancellor Olaf Scholz, of “European sovereignty”going so far as to suggest the adoption of a “made in Europe 2030” strategy, to regain competitiveness and autonomy.
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