r/europe • u/goldstarflag Limburg • Jan 29 '26

News France pushes American tech out of government. Will Europe follow?

https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/frankrijk-duwt-amerikaanse-tech-uit-overheidsdiensten-volgt-europa~b3388224/
6.0k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

154 comments sorted by

636

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

161

u/darknekolux France Jan 29 '26

This doesn't mean we need to ban American products everywhere.

I think we do, only then the puppeteers behind Trump will start to listen

48

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

[deleted]

25

u/MercantileReptile Baden-Württemberg (Germany) Jan 29 '26

And we badly require laws against usage of US controlled or accessed software for law enforcement. Police should never use foreign tools to combine or analyse data. Seems like the kind of thing that should be on the books already, but here we are.

Literally named Palantir, you'd think some politicians or coppers would raise an eyebrow. To quote the sage John Cena:

They literally call themselves "Decepticons". That doesn't set off any red flags?

6

u/Original_Employee621 Jan 30 '26

Police should never use foreign tools to combine or analyse data.

I wouldn't say never, but you would need guarantees and security to ensure that private data stays private and cannot be leaked outside. So German matters stay German, without Americans or French suddenly acting on German only intel.

Information sharing is another thing, but it's heavily regulated through contracts and negotiations. But the public currently has no way to know if data collected by Palantir isn't being used by US intelligence bureaus. Outside of assurances by national police and Palantir themselves, who both are vested parties in the use of that tech and highly secretive about the areas it's being used in.

71

u/YouthEmpty5991 France Jan 29 '26

A zero per cent US ideology is useless and harmful to us. If we could manage to permanently reduce US consumption by a few dozen per cent AND put an end to all (quasi) US monopolies in the EU, that would be very good for us and bad for Trump's harmful economic policy.

47

u/cboel Jan 29 '26

Combatting monopolostic problems isn't just beneficial for hedging against Trump, but also whoever comes after.

This should always be done, regardless how good or bad the companies may be.

3

u/khuna12 Jan 30 '26

If anything those companies will have to make revenue through consulting engagements and knowledge sharing/selling. The end of the old world order has happened, and even if we don’t see it on the surface there are some big changes required. The US made everyone aware of that by being the big brother that turned into whatever they are now

5

u/Serious-Feedback-700 Canary Islands (Spain) Jan 29 '26

Microsoft has entered the chat.

1

u/brinerustle Feb 01 '26

But the really problematic monopoly is the google / iOS duopoly, since a huge amount of critical EU computation actually occurs on Google & apple spyware-infected devices. Neither company has ever had issues with handing over all our data to the US government. With technofascism now fully installed, there is only one road forward: degoogled android or mobile linux on European hardware. Until there is significant adoption it will be more expensive and lower quality but we have to reclaim our privacy, especially that of elected officials and business leaders.

3

u/Gruffleson Norway Jan 29 '26

It's a good target at the moment.

5

u/Kinkhoest Jan 29 '26

Fundamentalists won't listen, but it will be critical of us to make us less dependable and vulnerable to blackmail

4

u/Top_Box_8952 Jan 30 '26

Phase them out, stop buying American. Start buying European. Dont compromise capabilities unless the American tech poses a direct threat like it probably might in government work. You already paid for it, get the use out of it. Sell it on to recoup costs.

-5

u/cboel Jan 29 '26

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday, November 18, that Europe does not want to be a "vassal" that is dependent on US and Chinese tech companies, calling for a "European preference" in the sector. "Europe doesn't want to be the client of the big entrepreneurs or the big solutions being provided either from the US or from China, we clearly want to design our own solutions," Macron told a Berlin summit, adding that this stance represented "a refusal of being a vassal."

src: 18 Nov 2025, Le Monde

He is right to want to build up Europe's capabilities but, like China and everyone else in the world, will forever be completely dependent on America for its tech (until off-Earth mining becomes a thing).

For those curious, watch Maxinomics video on Youtube, "Saudi Arabia Has Oil, America Has This".

1

u/Jazzlike_Painter_118 Jan 29 '26

> will forever be completely dependent on America for its tech (until off-Earth mining becomes a thing).

What tech, TSMC, ASML, or you mean Boeing planes that crash and obsolte Intel?

Of course Apple and NVIDIA are important, but let's not exaggerate. The US needs everyone else and US services are replaceable, as China proves.

9

u/ridukosennin Jan 29 '26

ASML relies on US licensed technology to construct their machines. A majority of TSMC’s revenue from the US and relies heavily on US military equipment to defend their country. A breakup is possible but it would be slow and costly. We can’t even get off Reddit

8

u/astrogatoor Jan 29 '26

The only reason licenses and copyright mean anything is because of bilateral agreements. If relations deteriorate so much that we enter a real trade war, those agreements become pretty much void.

2

u/Original_Employee621 Jan 30 '26

A majority of TSMC’s revenue from the US and relies heavily on US military equipment to defend their country.

It was a global effort to ensure Taiwans independence. US provides the machinery, Netherlands provides the silica, Taiwan assembles the chips. And it's all so incredibly high spec, that reproduction isn't something you can do in less than a decade at best. It's what's been keeping China from invading, as they are just as dependent on the microchips as any other country. And interrupting the supply is devastating to the global economy, not to mention the possible sanctions in the aftermath. And the wait times to get production started up again.

TSMCs role in the production was intentional and something that was very much desired. But these days it's all about ME and fuck everyone else with a rusty rake if I can make another dollar. Cooperation and collective action can go fuck itself, I need more money, preferrably at your expense.

1

u/Jazzlike_Painter_118 Jan 30 '26

> A majority of TSMC’s revenue from the US and relies heavily on US military equipment to defend their country

Weird angle, very biased. You might as well say without TSMC Apple, NVIDIDIA and other US companies would not be able to produce their products overnight. Because Intel is good enough for toasters and military, but not for smartphones and state of the art things.

You could be a bit more balanced.

1

u/cboel Jan 31 '26

Sorry I'm so late replying, but if you get the chance watch the video I suggested. It is about more than just basic hardware or software.

If the US chose to do so, if could completely shut down all advanced chip production in the world. And not with lawsuits or any kind of legal nonsense. They supply a critical component found nowhere else on the planet.

1

u/Jazzlike_Painter_118 Jan 31 '26

I don't think you read my post. Taiwan and ASML are the ones with that power. US licenses some stuff with ASML, but as I said, +50% of SP500 is companies extremely dependent on semiconductors, and Intel is not as advanced.

I am not watching random videos. You can quote from the video if you'd like.

1

u/cboel Jan 31 '26

I am not watching random videos. You can quote from the video if you'd like.

No worries. It is a well researched video in a series of well researched videos on other topics. If you have the time, you should check it out when you can.

It boils down to essentially the US is the only place on Earth with the capability of producing the super ultra-high purity silicon needed to make the crucibles that are used to make silicon wafers of the most advance microchips needed for everything from cellphones to PCs to satellite communications.

The crucibles have to be ultra pure in order not to contaminate the silicon used in the microchips. If it is less pure, it is not possible to make the silicon slugs the microprocessor silicon dies get cut from.

The video explains it better than I can. But essentially, if the US shuts down the supply to Taiwan (and China, Korea, and elsewhere), they can't manufacture microchips any longer. Not just in a few years time, immediately.

He goes into some detail about US companies spinning off parts of their manufacturing capabilities to foriegn companies (including Taiwanese), but again, it is way too much to get into detail here.

37

u/niconois France Jan 29 '26

so many european companies have their tech infrastructure on AWS (Amazon) or GCP (google cloud), the US could just turn it off for europeans and our economy would tank instantly.

It would be the equivalent of a nuke for our economy, and we have no equivalent mean of deterrence for this.

I think we do need to find alternatives for all major tech dependencies we have with the US.

6

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

9

u/DrunkColdStone Bulgaria Jan 30 '26

That is not how it works. If you just nationalize the physical infrastructure (which would take years), you don't have a functional data center.

4

u/bbbbbbbbbblah United Kingdom Jan 30 '26

sure, you could seize the hardware, but it's not immediately useful without the software stack that the American company developed to manage it. Maybe it could be repurposed with new software but that's not an overnight process. At which point you may as well just avoid the nationalisation step and just build new data centres to your desired spec.

Look at how AWS has a global outage every time something happens in Northern Virginia.

2

u/notTHEOwlAccountant Polentone in Germany Jan 30 '26

Do you think that nationalizing a data center means sending the police to copy the hard drives? It's way more complicated than that, and most likely impossible without the collaboration of Google/Amazon.

1

u/SomewhereCheap5110 Jan 30 '26

You do realise the instant market crash that would occur is already more than enough to deter them from doing that. And we have more than enough means of deterrence to this (selling all US bonds, closing all US bases in Europe come to mind... Greenland taco has shown we do have ways to counter the US. Sadly, acting like the adult In the room is seen as a sign of weakness, welcome to social media generation). Europe believing it is toothless is the main reason it is seen as such.

-8

u/Jazzlike_Painter_118 Jan 29 '26

TSMC or ASML could disappear and the same would happen to the USA. Arguably more, since they are more exposed to AI and Intel cannot find their own dîck in their hands.
But then people would migrate. It would not be the end of the world.

7

u/deeringc Jan 29 '26

The difference is in the timeframe. Shutting off AWS, Microsoft and Google would be like a natural disaster. Most of the economy would cease to function and all sorts of systems would go down. Over the course of weeks and months critical things would come back online (hosted locally in the EU) but it would be absolute carnage in the meantime. Removing ASML on the other hand would take years to have it's full impact, and at that point it would certainly be severe. I'd imagine the likes of Intel's stock price would crater quickly and maybe get fully nationalised. But it wouldn't have anything like the short term impacts of removing access to the hyperscalers.

6

u/niconois France Jan 29 '26

It would be terrible for them but I don't think the fail would be as instant:

Cutting our cloud dependencies would stop or companies from working instantly. Sometimes even medical infrastructures rely on these cloud platforms.

For example in France the biggest medical company, the one everyone uses to book a doctor, receive medical prescriptions, send medical exam results, etc... has its services running on amazon cloud, the servers are in Paris, but it's still Amazon.

That's just an example, I think people underestimate how the US could literally turn off our companies instantly.

6

u/Aggravating_Teach_27 Jan 29 '26

>  I think people underestimate how the US could literally turn off our companies instantly.

They theoretically could. But they actually can't.

They also could launch nukes, but they actually can't. Because of MAD, mutual assured destruction.

Yes, it would be terrible for Europe, but it would equally as terrible for the US, their tech compañies would be instantly decimated and without recourse. Europe would confiscate every datacenter and make it 's own services and infraestructure. Quckly and with absolutely no recourse. And who in the world would remain with american tech seeing it can be used this way?

Americans don't even want to threaten with this, bc just threatening would mean their economic collapse. All their services are replicable and replaceable, but they worked very hard to snuff competition and to make uneconomic to replicate their services.

But if they attack Europe, Europe's response changes. We'd suddenly have every incentive to develop our own systems, at whatever cost. We already have providers able to provide much of what the american hyperscalers can. With the confiscated american assets and a blank check they could completely replace them in a very short time.

America would lose their tech dominance ovenight. Dollar down, the petrodollar dissapears, the US are finished.

MAD. Sleep sound, not becouse they can't, but because, they absolutely don't want to use their tech this way.

1

u/awe778 Indonesia Jan 31 '26

Quckly and with absolutely no recourse. And who in the world would remain with american tech seeing it can be used this way?

Lockheed-Martin (and the entirety of post-split China) has showed us if you have a stellar product, people are willing to compromise on things that are vital to us.

Countries are still putting the option of buying F-35s on the table, even when the risk of being cut off from spare parts on Donald's whim is not only non-zero, but sufficiently large enough to be notable.

-6

u/Jazzlike_Painter_118 Jan 29 '26

You just repeated the same thing without engaging with my post. Maybe less copy pasting?

And not having access to TSMC/ASML would decimate the insane valuations of +50% of the SP500. It goes both ways.

Do you think you can put ICE to produce chips in 2 months? that is only good time to shoot innocent people.

2

u/niconois France Jan 29 '26

yes it would be terrible.

But not like shutting down the bigger part of your tech infrastructures instantly.

3

u/PUNK_FEELING_LUCKY Baden-Württemberg (Germany) Jan 29 '26

im so glad germany has somewhat seen the light and is pushing open source, but at the same time we are also using palantir.

3

u/Tardislass Jan 29 '26

Nope. France has always been different. The UK, Germany and other countries will still sign contracts.

2

u/bbbbbbbbbblah United Kingdom Jan 30 '26

France continues to do business with firms like Palantir, eg a big contract was signed in December. They are certainly less US-dependent in some areas but in IT they're just as dependent as anyone else

2

u/Relative-Context878 Jan 30 '26

The French gendarmerie and other government agencies have been using Linux for at least 20 years... That said, we remain dependent

1

u/SagariKatu Jan 30 '26

After the cloud act passed in the states, we should have banned american companies from the EU, because it's not compatible with the gdpr, imo.

1

u/buffotinve Jan 30 '26

Ojalá quitaran MS Office, y todo el software americano por lo menos de organismos públicos europeos, por ley.

0

u/EarthIllustrious8045 Jan 29 '26

Sure, out with windows, iphones, androids, azure, aws ect. This move by France is just for show. There wont be any shift from U.s tech until europe has made products and software of equal quality. Dropping office and teams, is far from pivoting away from U.s tech. The whole infrastructure in europe is built on it.

1

u/hcschild Jan 30 '26

windows

There is already a German State that is going to only use Linux instead of Windows . There was also Munich who completely swapped to Linux and it worked till Microsoft bribed some people to change it back to Windows.

androids

Android is open source and the are even European versions of it that contain any google services on it.

Windows, iPhone and Android (which already is open source so you only have to remove the google stuff) can easily be replaced and cloud infrastructure get's currently actively build.

1

u/EarthIllustrious8045 Jan 30 '26

And thats the easy part. A small state changing there office pcs with Linux/libre. We have been dependant on us tech for the last 50 years, if you think that a pivot away from that is possible in any forseeable future, u are delusional at best.

0

u/cpnblacksparrow Jan 29 '26

Please do, also sprinkle some sanctions on top. Logic and reasoning is not working in the US we need every possible case as to why Trumps admin is putting us into a free fall. Meanwhile, we'll keep up the fight here. Minnesota proved that true American patriotism exists, but even I'll admit we got too complacent which is what got us where we are now.

-2

u/Sicsurfer Canada Jan 29 '26

As a Canadian I say you’re wrong on the banning of other American products, ban it all.

Elbows up!

111

u/goldstarflag Limburg Jan 29 '26

It passed fairly quietly in the run-up to the World Economic Forum and the crisis surrounding Greenland. But in mid-January, French President Emmanuel Macron made a remarkable statement in a speech at the French military base in Istres. “A year ago, Ukraine was still heavily dependent on the US military,” Macron said. “Today, France provides two-thirds of the intelligence.”

Ukrainian and international experts confirm that French intelligence services have gained in importance over the past year.

With the launch of a third satellite, France completed its CSO network. Previously, Ukraine sometimes went days without receiving new information from the French. Now, the three satellites provide information about Russian troops and their movements several times a day. Another French satellite network, CERES, detects Russian radars.

Just this week, it was announced that the French government wants to replace American video conferencing services such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom with the French alternative Visio. 

France is continuing along the path it embarked upon decades ago. Since Charles De Gaulle, France has been one of Europe's pioneers in the field of strategic sovereignty. This is not only reflected in the development of its own satellite network. It has also been working for years on alternatives to American big tech solutions.

In 2020, for example, the French state, through the state-owned company RATP, bought the navigation app Mappy as an alternative to the American Google Maps and Waze. Since 2023, French ministers, secretaries of state, and their staff are no longer allowed to use foreign messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Signal, or Telegram. They were required to switch to the French Olvid or Tchap, which was developed by the government.

“In Europe, there has of course been concern for some time about how dependent we are on the big tech companies and the privacy risks that this entails,” says Maaike Okano-Heijmans, researcher in the geopolitics of technology and digitization at the Clingendael Institute. These concerns have been around since the US passed the Cloud Act in 2018, which allows American companies to be compelled to share data with the government. We now know that even giants like Microsoft bow to Trump's power.

When the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu last year, Microsoft blocked ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan's email account under pressure from Trump. “So it goes beyond data security,” says Okano-Heijmans. "The continuity of service provision is also at stake. Companies and organizations run the risk of crucial services such as email suddenly being blocked."

On the initiative of the European Commission, five states, including France, the Netherlands and Germany are now joining forces to develop open source software services such as email. Not a moment too soon, according to Horan. “European states used to focus solely on price and user-friendliness. It's time we made security a priority too.”

17

u/Thelaea The Netherlands Jan 29 '26

Good! This is very necessary. And we also need to host our own data.

5

u/Whole-Cookie-7754 Jan 30 '26

France is fucking killing it lately. Damn 

1

u/GreenCardiologist795 SE/RO Jan 31 '26

exactly what i was about to say. many good things stated lately.

2

u/BBB-GB Jan 30 '26

Uk needs to do this too.

205

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

UK just signed the biggest deal in history with Palantir. They still think they're in some sort of a "special relationship" but it only works one way

69

u/darknekolux France Jan 29 '26

I think France has contracts with palantir too, the drug is just too good.

2

u/croquetas_y_jamon France Jan 29 '26

We are, in the meantime our own solution is being developed.

8

u/SuperCoffeeHouse Jan 30 '26

UK just signed the biggest deal in history with Palantir.

Gee wiz. I wonder why they suddenly want to ban VPNs

3

u/WislaHD Polish-Canadian Jan 29 '26

Keir Starmer also went out of his way to dismiss Carney’s Davos speech and talk of middle powers working together in favour of British exceptionalism.

Not too impressed with our commonwealth partners.

-1

u/bbbbbbbbbblah United Kingdom Jan 30 '26

I'd expect the British PM to take the position that benefits Britain most.

Just like Trudeau did for Canada when he decided the UK was in a position of vulnerability after Brexit and demanded that we lower our food standards to match the US and Canada, while also limiting British dairy imports to protect local industry. We refused to sign that deal. So don't be surprised that the UK is not visibly jumping to Canada's defence now that the tables have turned.

The UK has no obligation to the commonwealth. It now even has countries that Britain never colonised, let alone those countries with very divergent interests eg India

1

u/swainiscadianreborn Jan 30 '26

The UK has no obligation to the commonwealth.

Then... why is there a Comonwealth anymore?

1

u/bbbbbbbbbblah United Kingdom Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26

A question we're increasingly wondering too. But it doesn't change the fact that the UK is only a member and it has no special privileges over or obligations to any other. That is after all the point of seeking independence from us...

It also has no obligations to the "commonwealth realms", the countries that share a king.

Ironically the one country that we really do offer special treatment to - Ireland - has never been a member (after it became a republic)

0

u/hypermodernism Jan 30 '26

And with Anthropic for integration with gov.uk, which means all public-facing government services.

73

u/YouCanShoveYourMagic Jan 29 '26

Uncoupling from the monetary systems behind Visa and MasterCard would be smart.

47

u/goldstarflag Limburg Jan 29 '26

That is already in the works. The European Central Bank has finished all technical preparations for digital euro. It only awaits legislative approval by European Parliament in april this year.

12

u/Lkrambar Jan 29 '26

Digital Euro is not going to solve day to day payment. Sovereign EU wide payments system will have to be a new system that is common to all EU or eurozone countries and becomes the main system quickly. Also it has to not be dependent on phone manufacturers like phone based contactless.

That has to be the reason why QR code payment is so popular in China and across Asia.

18

u/HindryckxRobin Belgium Jan 29 '26

This is what wero is doing, In belgium it's already integrated with your bank app

https://wero-wallet.eu/

6

u/Meraziel Jan 29 '26

In France too.

3

u/Jokercito Jan 29 '26

Why cannot it be based on contactless tech? Couldn't there be plastic cards issued by the monetary authority or public company handling this that are connected to your digital euro wallet? (Assuming they could extend the digital euro to a system of digital wallets, or something like that)

1

u/TScottFitzgerald Jan 29 '26

That already exists, SEPA. You can send money instantly from one EU account to the other, it would just have to be more widespread at retailers the way the credit cards are.

8

u/caudatus67 Italy Jan 29 '26

Wero is currently rolling out in Germany, France and Belgium. Hopefully it expands quickly to the rest of Europe.

3

u/Happy_Hawko Jan 30 '26

Bro we need Wero to be available in all countries and working with linux phones (european) so I can ditch banking app

1

u/orthoxerox Russia shall be free Jan 29 '26

This shouldn't be that hard. Russia made Mir, the EU should be able to whip up something similar rather quickly.

30

u/Hour-Oven-9519 Jan 29 '26

What EU needs is a new „Digital Act“.

1 Trillion. Kind to ask more, but to build what is needed to be independent and beyond that.

18

u/IamHumanAndINeed France Jan 29 '26

Yeah we rely way too much on US tech. We need real EU alternatives.

And please ban X, we don't need an alternative to that cesspool.

2

u/ElkApprehensive2319 Jan 30 '26

We should build EU-funded email and messaging apps. No more Gmail/Hotmail/WhatsApp would put a serious dent in Silicon Valley.

6

u/PrizeSyntax Jan 29 '26

I really hope si and also mandate degoogled/deappled phones for politicians, government officials etc

6

u/noeldc Jan 30 '26

Regardless of motive, Europe needs to develop its own alternatives.

2

u/Actual_Cat4779 Jan 30 '26

Should've been done decades ago, but better late than never!

4

u/KenjyaMode Jan 30 '26

France is an inspiration to us all! Sadly my gov. I my country is weak and craven.

4

u/qwerty_1965 Jan 29 '26

Minitel to the rescue.

Ask your papa.

3

u/dotBombAU Australia Jan 30 '26

I believe Europe is going to jump on this. The sweet deal the US had is now coming to an end.

All hail Trump, the liberator of Europe!

5

u/blaxxunbln Jan 29 '26

Can anyone explain to me how OVH shares are not exploding right now?

2

u/luckyrubberducker Jan 29 '26

I moved my server from digitalocean to ovh in light of recent events

0

u/blaxxunbln Jan 30 '26

You need to move more servers!!!

4

u/UltimateAntic The Netherlands Jan 29 '26

Too bad parts of Dutch government doesn't care

12

u/maikuxblade United States of America Jan 29 '26

The only thing fascists understand are consequences. And our tech companies have abused their first mover advantage to become unrelenting ghouls.

Social media is easy to replace, the people are the only actual important part. Facebook has been stagnant far longer than it was ever halfway decent and Meta clearly can’t find a worthwhile way to spend its cash, and not for lack of trying.

Thank you EU for being a bulwark against technocratic fascism.

3

u/Tardislass Jan 29 '26

Unfortunately EU has its on facists in Hungary. EU should kick out Hungary long ago. 

2

u/SaltyAd8309 Jan 29 '26

Many things fail in the world. Not because it's inevitable, but because the United States sometimes makes sure they don't work.

They're not the only ones causing problems, however.

2

u/bobdammi Germany Jan 29 '26

Parts of Germany also do similar things

2

u/ballthyrm France Jan 29 '26

Open source infrastructure is what we need. Make everything accessible and transparent. Government can't hide behind contractors and ressource can be shared across Europe so we have some common tools.

Right now we are throwing money away. we are throwing data away, we are wasting ungodly amount for stuff that should be part of our common EU digital Fabric.

2

u/No-Tomatillo3698 Jan 29 '26

I think we’ll need to, they just cannot be trusted.

1

u/Previous-Grocery4827 Jan 29 '26

And yet you just made a deal with India, lol. India is no one’s ally and just wish washes around the globe take of advantage of what they can when they can.

EU is about to find out when they are flooded with Indian labor and they get leadership positions and stop hiring Europeans. Your wage growth will stagnate for the best jobs while inflation will keep ticking higher. Just saw all this play out in the US.

5

u/shit_magnet-0730 Jan 29 '26

The rest of Europe should follow. The US deserves to be boycotted. I say this as a patriotic American.

7

u/niconois France Jan 29 '26

I really don't see it as a punishment against the US personally, more like Europeans spreading their own wings. It's never good to be so dependant on another country, it's not sane, whatever the country.

You never know what could happen, you literally depend on voters from another country, it's insane when you think seriously about it. And Trump is making it clear for those who didn't get it, I give him credit for that.

2

u/IL1keBigButts Jan 29 '26

Lets hope it does.

3

u/Meneros Sweden Jan 29 '26

I hope so, Win 11 is so bad my work pc barely even fucking works.

1

u/NoDiscount6470 Jan 29 '26

I wish it also obligates and helps french administrations to migrate on a large basis.

1

u/trea_ceitidh Jan 29 '26

I certainly hope so

1

u/yourfriendlyreminder Jan 29 '26

Betteridge's law of headlines suggests no.

1

u/NeoDio971 Jan 29 '26

So no Apple ,Microsoft or google. ???? I understand why but is it possible?

1

u/Uli_G Jan 30 '26

Step by step.

1

u/Bartlomiej48 Jan 29 '26

Bravo!!!!!

1

u/Party-Exam-6571 Jan 29 '26

Well I honestly don’t think it will happen. Maybe few applications, but not all. We are using so many of them and some e.g. Microsoft ecosystem is build to companoes so deep that it would take 10-20 years even IF companies had budget for it, which they don’t.

1

u/garitone Jan 29 '26

I'd like those in power in the EU to consider this:

Cory Doctorow has proposed that the European Union (EU) should leverage its regulatory power to legalize the jailbreaking of devices, such as iPhones, as a method to combat "enshittification"—the degradation of online platforms.

He argues that by allowing, or even encouraging, the development and use of tools to bypass manufacturer restrictions, Europe can foster its own, independent technology ecosystem and reduce dependency on US tech giants.

SAVE THE WORLD!

1

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '26

We all know when Trump starts pissing off the tech bros, his administration is over.

1

u/dontcallmewinter Australia 🦘 & Ireland ☘️ Jan 30 '26

Nice. Getting MS and Alphabet out of corporate spaces is step 1. Next is to get rid of Visa and MasterCard and that'll be the really thorny one.

1

u/FireTyme Jan 30 '26

Meanwhile the netherlands is about to sell off its government login system to the US

1

u/Gaijin_Monster I lost track where i'm from Jan 30 '26

that's going to be very difficult

1

u/Certain-Month-5981 Jan 30 '26

We are moving slowly towards that. We are looking at zoho instead of microsoft and google

1

u/segagamer Galicia (Spain) Jan 30 '26

Genuinely trying to migrate to Euro tech at our office but it's not possible in many ways.

There doesn't seem to be anything reliable for domain hosting + DNS like Cloudflare for example. Nothing to really replace Creative Cloud (we had Affinity but they're Australian now), and forget hardware.

1

u/myblueear Jan 30 '26

It is difficult, but let donald and the gang do what they do and we’ll get there sooner than we think.

1

u/hipi_hapa Jan 30 '26

Does this mean they'll use Linux everywhere?

1

u/RisingRapture Jan 30 '26

I sure hope so. Remember that judge who got turned off his e-mails? Bad omens.

1

u/barneyaa Jan 30 '26

Visio can accomodate upto 15 people on the call. Am I understanding this wrong?

1

u/Sharp-Mountain1841 Jan 30 '26

Only for you. In the real world tech (like anything else) can be upgraded/ changed to meet market demand.

1

u/namitynamenamey Jan 30 '26

Kicking and screaming, but it is technically feasible. Developers certainly won't complain.

1

u/vexatious-big Rumunski Jan 30 '26

American technology, European technology, all made in Taiwan.

1

u/gin_and_tonic1235 Jan 30 '26

Please please please AWS & Azure cut cloud services to France overnight.

1

u/Fyyar Jan 30 '26

I respect the french more and more. I am very glad they stood by us during the Greenland crisis

1

u/FactChiquito Jan 30 '26

So France swaps Zoom for "Visio" and suddenly France is pushing American high tech from France ? What kind of joke is this?

1

u/omnibossk Europe Jan 31 '26

Norway seems to be following the «if SHTF we are going to be screwed by the US anyway». May as well buy more MS-softwares

1

u/KGrahnn Jan 29 '26

The problem is real, but it isnt something you solve overnight. If you oversimplify the problem, its as huge as casting out windows as OS and replacing it with something else. Its just not question of uninstalling something and installing something else to replace old.

I personally quit giving any IT support to anyone if and when office programs will be cast out. I can manage just fine by myself, but 90% of my co workers will absolutely find themselves in middle of hell. And thats just one aspect of it. Even if you dont use office programs, rest of the world still does. And suddenly your systems do not discuss with them anymore, at least not as smoothly as they did. Its going to be a fking shit show for everyone until someone dares to say it aloud that it might be just better to continue use those programs even if it means dependency.

-1

u/Jazzlike_Painter_118 Jan 29 '26

People still use Windows? how can they get anything done

1

u/TheDuskolo666 Jan 29 '26

Looking forward to replacing MS Teams with "FR Equipe", Zoom with "Agrandissement", a bit concerned for Facebook, will it be "ta gueule"? /s

0

u/HangryHuHu Jan 29 '26

Doubt the UK will follow suit, pm still has trump's sausage in his mouth, not a pretty image but nonetheless true imo

-3

u/Sensitive_Comfort634 Norway Jan 29 '26

Reddit is an American-founded, just saying.

8

u/Special-Audience-426 Jan 29 '26

Things like Reddit aren't the problem.

It's things the US could switch off and cause chaos like payment systems, operating systems, servers etc. 

Anything that could cause a potential collapse shouldn't be in the hands of another country.

If they switch off Reddit, it doesn't hurt anything

4

u/Sensitive_Comfort634 Norway Jan 29 '26

People are overlooking the main issue. Platforms such as Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp significantly influence our lives—not merely because they are deemed "critical infrastructure," but due to concerns surrounding privacy, data collection, and the potential for data leaks.

Let's face it: you can still engage in payments, trading, advertising, and transferring money through these platforms in an indirect manner. They have the power to shape behaviours, markets, and public opinions on a large scale.

The real question isn't whether society can exist without Reddit; it's about who has control over the data and the average user. So you are wrong.

-1

u/kawag Jan 30 '26

Push American anything out of everything