German media: Digital sovereignty: French government decides to use only "domestic products"
To reduce dependence on foreign software, especially from the United States, the French government has decided to regain and control key digital infrastructure. This marks a turning point in France's digital sovereignty strategy.
On Monday, January 26, the French government announced that government departments will gradually phase out widely used Zoom and Microsoft Teams, replacing them with the domestically developed video conferencing software Visio. Paris set a deadline, requiring all ministries and national institutions to complete the replacement by 2027.
David Amiel, Minister of Public Sector and National Reform, stated, "Our goal is to replace non-European solutions with a strong autonomous tool to ensure the security and confidentiality of public electronic communications."
It is reported that the Visio platform has been tested for one year in France and currently has about 40,000 users. The announcement on Monday stipulates that the French National Center for Scientific Research, health insurance companies, and the General Directorate of Public Finance will be the first units to switch to the Visio software. The French Ministry of Defense plans to fully deploy Visio in the first quarter of 2026.
What is Visio?
Visio is part of Suite Numérique. Suite Numérique is a set of official digital office tools launched by the French government, which can be understood as the government version of Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Its customer base is the public sector, not the general public or private enterprises.
Under the Suite Numérique environment, Visio is the official video conferencing tool, usually called VisioConférence, colloquially referred to as Visio. The technology comes from the French startup Pyannote. In addition to standard meeting functions, Visio also provides AI-driven transcription features that can identify speakers.
Visio runs on the autonomous cloud infrastructure developed by Outscale, a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes. Therefore, if the Visio video platform is used, the entire meeting and digital storage process becomes a closed-loop procedure within France, including cloud services.
Cloud services are a weakness for European countries, as Europe has a high dependence on American cloud servers. It has been proven that cloud services provided by the United States are not always reliable. In the second half of 2025, there were several consecutive incidents of cloud service outages in the United States. Afterward, European countries began openly questioning the issue of excessive reliance on American IT infrastructure.
Given the geopolitical tensions and concerns about foreign surveillance, the French government has become increasingly aware of the urgency of digital sovereignty. Last summer, the French government left WhatsApp and Telegram and registered on the French-developed Tchap application.
Source: DW
Original: toutiao.com/article/1855578137945100/
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