France abandons Teams, Zoom and Webex for a European platform

France has decided to stop using US-based video conferencing software across all its government agencies. By 2027, every French ministry will use Visio instead of Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, or any other non-European platform.

As part of the La Suite Numérique initiative, Visio has been in testing for a year, operated by 40.000 users across different ministries. It is an open-source application under an MIT license that claims to offer “Zoom-level performance” with a high-quality video and audio experience.

See more articles from iGuRu.gr when you search for news on Google.

iGuRu.gr preferred source

It will operate on a French infrastructure, maintaining full control over the data and how it is processed.

When asked what their goal was, David Amiel, Minister of Public Administration and State Reform, stated that :

The aim is to end the use of non-European solutions and to ensure the security and privacy of public electronic communications by relying on a strong and dominant tool.

This isn't the first time the French have tried to do something about the dominance of big tech companies in their country. Last year, in July, the city of Lyon began the process of abandoning Microsoft for ONLYOFFICE and a Linux-based operating system.

This move is good, but it's not enough. A German state is on track to save 15 million euros each year by abandoning Microsoft 365 and opting for LibreOffice.

The French estimate that they will save 1 million euros per 100.000 users annually.

Denmark has already pledged to switch to LibreOffice , while Swiss data protection authorities have sounded the alarm, calling on the Swiss government to reconsider the use of international cloud services to handle sensitive data.

newsbot

Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.