France's national digital directorate, DINUM, announced (in French) that it is migrating its workstations from Windows to Linux.
The announcement emerged from an inter-ministerial seminar held on April 8, jointly organized by the Directorate General for Enterprise (DGE), the National Agency for Information Systems Security (ANSSI) and the State Procurement Directorate (DAE).
Switching to Linux isn't the only move on the table. France's national health insurance provider, CNAM, is transferring 80.000 of its employees to domestic tools: Tchap for messaging, Visio for video calls and France transfert for file transfers.
Beyond the immediate actions, the seminar presented a broader plan. DINUM will coordinate an inter-ministerial effort based on the creation of coalitions between ministries, public and private sector entities, focusing on interoperability standards (the Open Interop and Open Buro initiatives are mentioned).
Each French ministry, including public bodies, will have to submit its own software change plan by autumn 2026.
The plan is expected to cover topics such as workstations, collaboration tools, antivirus, artificial intelligence, databases, virtualization and network equipment. “Digital Industry Meetings” are planned for June 2026, where public-private coalitions are expected to be formalized.
Speaking about this initiative, Anne Le Hénanff, Minister for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Affairs, said (translated from French):
“Digital sovereignty is not optional — it is a strategic necessity. Europe must equip itself with the means to meet its ambitions, and France is leading by example by accelerating the transition to sovereign, interoperable and sustainable solutions.
By reducing our dependence on non-European solutions, the State sends a clear message: that of a public authority regaining control of its technological choices in the service of its digital sovereignty.”
Maybe you rememberA few months earlier, France embarked on a similar journey for video conferencing. The country mandated that every government agency switch to Visio, the homegrown, MIT-licensed alternative to Teams and Zoom, by 2027.
Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.
