Michel Paulin (OVHcloud): “The State must play its role as a strategist”

Europe must be more ambitious vis-à-vis the United States and China. This is what emerges from the plea for digital sovereignty delivered by Michel Paulin, CEO of OVHcloud, this Friday, October 14 at the Cybersecurity Conference in Monaco. In the fight with the American giants Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, the northern host has called on political decision-makers, whether in Paris or Brussels, to move up a gear to guarantee the digital sovereignty of the Old Continent.

In this sense, the leader considers that it is urgent to acquire a real “digital autonomy”. “Europe must now ask itself the question of its digital autonomy”, said the boss of OVHcloud. In his eyes, this autonomy is the cornerstone of digital sovereignty while “China wants to be totally autonomous” and “the United States repatriates its production of electronic components”. “Digital sovereignty is two things: data sovereignty and technological sovereignty”summed up Michel Paulin.

For the time being, Europe is far from the mark, even if things have been changing for a few years, in particular under the impetus of European commissioners Margrethe Vestager and Thierry Breton, who have introduced texts such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). “Europe has not understood the challenge of technology and is beginning to realize it”, judge Michel Paulin. Before refining his observation: “Europe is not united even though it is the biggest IT market in the world. There is a very strong misalignment between a certain number of countries. In addition, there is very strong lobbying to say that there is no alternative. Yet there are examples of failure in the United States. Google has invested heavily in gaming and it has not worked. There is a form of defeatism in Europe. Yet 100% of the winners tried their luck.”

In this context, the CEO of OVHcloud calls on the EU, which has missed the innovation train with artificial intelligence for example, and France to assert themselves more on the global technological scene. “The state must play its role of strategist. Europe has not been very strategic in recent years, but it is never too late. Are we going in the right direction? Yes. Are we going fast enough? No”he declared in front of an audience of cybersecurity professionals at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.

France expected at the turn to build a sovereign cloud

Michel Paulin’s remarks have a particular resonance as Thales also made the trip to the principality to defend its “cloud of trust” with Google. This offer with the American giant will see the light of day in 2024 within S3NS, a joint venture created for the occasion, and will aim for SecNumCloud certification at the start of 2025. This alliance, like that formed by Orange and Capgemini with Microsoft, is making people cringe European cloud players.

In this delicate climate, the government announced in September new measures in favor of the development of the sector. The objective is in particular to help SMEs and start-ups obtain SecNumCloud certification, the process of obtaining it being particularly demanding, long and costly. This should make it possible to build a sovereign cloud industry, while AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud hold 71% of the French cloud market, where they have managed to capture 80% of spending growth in 2021, according to a study by Markess by Exaegis.

At the end of September, the government also announced the creation of a sector strategic committee (CSF) intended to promote “the emergence of a competitive French offer in the coming years”. In this context, Michel Paulin must formulate to the ministers within six months a proposal on the composition, governance and objectives of this new organization, which must make it possible to defend the interests of French companies in the sector.