France to replace US videoconferencing wares with unfortunately named sovereign alternative
France has officially told Zoom, Teams, and the rest of the US videoconferencing herd to take a hike in favor of its own homegrown app.
The plan, announced on Monday, is to shove US videoconferencing tools out of the French public sector altogether, with Zoom, Teams, Webex, and Google Meet making way for a state-built alternative that Paris says keeps its data, infrastructure, and legal exposure firmly at home.
The platform, called Visio, is being developed and rolled out by the government’s Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs (DINUM) and is set to become the default, and eventually exclusive, video meeting tool for public servants.
The announcement was made by the Ministry of the Economy and Finance as part of France’s broader push for digital sovereignty. The government says that using foreign videoconferencing platforms exposes official communications to overseas infrastructure, laws, and political pressures it would rather avoid.
“This project is a concrete illustration of the Prime Minister and the Government’s commitment to regaining our digital independence,” said David Amiel, minister delegate for the Civil Service and State Reform. “We cannot risk having our scientific exchanges, our sensitive data, and our strategic innovations exposed to non-European actors. Digital sovereignty is simultaneously an imperative for our public services, an opportunity for our businesses, and insurance against future threats.”
According to the announcement, Visio has already been tested by tens of thousands of civil servants and is now being scaled up for wider use across ministries, agencies, and public bodies. The plan is for Visio to be in routine use across the state by 2027, after which external videoconferencing licenses would no longer be renewed. Large parts of the public sector, including tax and social security bodies, have already started the switch.
Security is the main sales pitch, with Paris stressing that Visio runs on infrastructure it controls and is built to comply with French and EU data protection and confidentiality rules. There’s money in it as well, at least on paper: Paris estimates that moving 100,000 users off commercial platforms saves around €1 million a year in license fees.
France is also keen to stress that Visio is not meant to be a bare-bones substitute. The platform will, eventually at least, boast transcription and live captions, but without shipping the audio off to someone else’s cloud. The subtext is less about convenience and more about avoiding US jurisdiction over data.
However, there is one small but telling irony lurking in the announcement. Calling a state videoconferencing platform “Visio” all but guarantees confusion with Microsoft’s long-established diagramming software of the same name, suggesting that, while France is moving to cut US dependencies, it may not have spent quite as much time on branding.
Whether Visio sticks or joins the long list of state IT projects that never quite replace the tools people actually like will only become clear over time. For now, though, France has made its position clear: when it comes to official video calls, Uncle Sam is no longer invited. ®
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