HAS the time of industrial and technological rearmament advocated by the president, Emmanuel Macron, during his speech at the Sorbonne, on April 24, the decision of the National Commission for Informatics and Liberties (CNIL) authorizing, four months earlier , the American tech giant Microsoft to host the health data of the French sounds like “a strange defeat”according to the sad formula of the historian Marc Bloch (1886-1944).
To justify his decision, the policeman responsible for the protection of the personal data of our fellow citizens argued that there was no European cloud player capable of providing an alternative solution responding “technical and functional requirements (…) for the implementation of the Health Data Hub within a timeframe compatible with the requirements of the latter”. First of all, we must disagree with this statement.
France has a vast and diverse ecosystem of technology companies, made up of both large groups recognized globally, such as Atos, Capgemini, Orange, Thales, Dassault Systèmes, Docaposte, and mid-sized companies (ETI) to the cutting edge of security with competitive functional capabilities. In Brussels, it is also surprising, not to say worrying, to see the European Commission considering a revision of the European Union Cybersecurity Certification Scheme for Cloud Services (EUCS) which would abandon the sovereignty criterion and wide open the doors to the European cloud to the American and Chinese giants.
Data, the black gold of the 21st century
But, at a time when Atos, one of our national champions, is under threat of a takeover by foreign financial investors, the French State and Europe must become aware of the considerable risks it poses. there is a need to give up economic sovereignty over data. If oil was the black gold of the 20the century, data has undoubtedly taken this place in the 21ste century. It is time to make decisions that match the challenges. France cannot resolve to lose the battle for technological sovereignty so as not to leave our economic heritage in the hands of American multinationals alone, who pursue strategic and financial interests opposed to ours.
A new impetus is possible. Twelve years ago, the French state decided to create a public organization, Bpifrance, intended to encourage the emergence of a true “start-up nation”. At the time, French venture capital was very modest. Today, it is the second largest ecosystem in Europe, behind Great Britain but well ahead of Germany.
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