TomsHarware reports that France is accelerating its plans for digital sovereignty. In an official press release, French DINUM announced “exit from Windows for workstations running the Linux operating system.
As you can read in the announcement, DINUM (Direction interministérielle du Numérique) is an important unit of the French state institution, headed by the Interministerial Directorate for Digitization – this means a key change in the government's activities, aimed at eliminate American commercial interests from desktop computers. DINUM assumes that a French version of Linux will be implemented to meet the declared requirements goal of migration to independent solutions. In this mission for digital sovereignty, DINUM is joined by the Directorate General for Enterprise (DGE), the French National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) and the Public Procurement Directorate (DAE).
Tux – the Linux system logo
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Wikipedia.com
The move to Linux is referred to as one of three “concrete first steps”which has recently been committed to reduce France's non-European digital dependence. The plan is expected to be formalized in the fall. By then, stakeholders will be informed what workstations, collaboration tools, antivirus software, artificial intelligence, databases, virtualization and network equipment will be needed to implement this initiative.
However, in the case of applications, and not just operating systems, France also recently announced that 80 thousand employees of the French health fund (CPAM (Caisse Primaire d'Assurance Maladie) has already moved to open alternatives to platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Dropbox. These commercial platforms have been phased out in favor of new services Tchap, Visio and FranceTransfert (and others), offering a set of modern collaboration tools as part of a suite LaSuite.
French LaSuite platform
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According to the press release, last month the French government also announced the migration of the medical data platform to another, open solution by the end of 2026.
France breaks with Microsoft. Here are the reasons
French ministers are keen to reduce France's dependence on technologies that depend on external interests or are controlled by them.
“We must become less dependent on American tools and regain control of our digital destiny. We can no longer accept that our data, our infrastructure and our strategic decisions depend on the solutions we use we do not control the rules, prices, evolution and risk” David Amiel, Minister of Public Operations and Accounting, wrote in a statement accompanying the above press release. It is worth noting that Amiel singled out the United States specifically in his statement that French state “must free itself”.
France leading the people to the barricades
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Own materials
Anne Le Hénanff, Minister Delegated for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies, also echoed Amiel's opinion, stating that “digital sovereignty is not an option, it is a strategic necessity“.
You may wonder if a growing disconnect between Donald Trump's United States and its traditional European allies it did not add momentum to the digital sovereignty movement in France.
Linux leading France to the barricades
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Microsoft Bing AI
Consequences for companies
Due to Donald Trump's policy, including numerous announcements of the US leaving NATO or even threats to take over European territories, the desire for Europe to become independent from the US and the reluctance to use the services of companies serving Trump are understandable..
- Read also: The Netherlands is considering a “jailbreak” of F-35 fighters
The implications for U.S. software and services companies do not look promising.
Microsoft could lose billions of dollars
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Paolo Bona / Shutterstock
France formally began moving away from the Microsoft ecosystem this year, obliging all public institutions to present migration plans from Windows and other non-European technologies to sovereign, mainly open source solutions by autumn 2026. The process is systemic and irreversible: by the end of 2026, the state will migrate, among others, medical data from Azure, and by 2027 at the latest, it will completely replace Microsoft Teams and Windows in public administration.
If the move to Linux is deemed a success, it could impact other government departments as well and organizations closely cooperating with it, down to individual users. In addition The decisions and direction of France, one of the leading members of the European Union, can have a strong influence on other EU countries.
