“Digital sovereignty. » The government has chosen to devote two days of conferences to this theme dear to Emmanuel Macron as part of the French presidency of the Council of the European Union, Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 February. However, on this ground, presidential candidates contest the policy of the executive, especially on online data hosting in the cloud, dominated by Microsoft, Amazon and Google.
Critics target the Cloud Trust Label, created in June 2021 by the government. This certification, now mandatory for service providers used by public actors, promotes a hybrid model: hosting by a company governed by European law, in order to escape extraterritorial laws allowing access to data by the authorities of the United States, but American software. On this model, Orange and Microsoft then Thales and Google have announced partnerships.
“The government has naively given up on the beautiful idea of a truly sovereign cloud”, attacked Valérie Pécresse on France Inter. The Republican candidate has legal doubts about the hybrid model and believes “that we abandon our French companies”, according to his advisor, Senator Catherine Morin-Desailly (Centrist Union). “This hybrid model is doomed to failure”, abounds Jean-Lin Lacapelle, adviser to Marine Le Pen.
Cédric O also judges “ironic” that Ile-de-France, chaired by Valérie Pécresse, uses Microsoft for videoconferencing and office automation…
Like the candidate of the National Rally, Eric Zemmour believes, in Point, than “The Orange-Capgemini-Microsoft or Thales-Google alliances open the door to American hegemony”. Vs “Gafam’s proprietary software”, Jean-Luc Mélenchon wants “develop a French cloud, made with free software (whose source code is open) and of mandatory use for the public and strategic sectors”, explains Jill-Maud Royer, digital manager of the “rebellious” candidate. “As with food or energy, we have to get out of external dependencies”, believes the adviser to Yannick Jadot (Europe Ecologie-Les Verts) François Thiollet, while admitting that this “will take time”.
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Faced with this “magical thinking”, Cédric O defends the “ridge line” from the executive: “We must protect data, support French players, but also allow our companies and administrations to have access to the best services”, explains the Secretary of State for Digital, for whom “French service providers have good services but not yet the same quality and range as their American competitors”. Mr. O also judges “ironic” that Ile-de-France, chaired by Valérie Pécresse, uses Microsoft for videoconferencing and office automation…
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