- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
The digital directorate in France will switch from Windows to Linux and the state is embarking on a major project to reduce the “outer European digital dependency”
The subject of digital sovereignty has been imposed in the public debate since the beginning of 2026 in the face of a hypothesis: and if the United States cut off access to some of its technologies in Europe.
In France, the Prime Minister commissioned the Inter-Ministerial Directorate of Digital Affairs (DINUM) to “reduce the state’s extra-European digital dependencies”. It is this body that supervises the computer equipment and the deployment of services to the various government administrations.
The first target is now known: it is Windows.
Meanwhile in Bavaria: “We’re switching the entire public administration to M365. We already signed the contracts with Microsoft. Questions of data security and privacy will be addressed later during the implementation phase.”
In 6 months: why did noone think of the security and privacy issues we re doomed 🙊
It’ll be “We realize German citizens are concerned about all their personal data being sent to ICE and used to train AI.
We have opened a ticket with Microsoft and are awaiting a response. There’s nothing more we can do at this point, but we’ll keep you updated.”
A little bit later: Your data are safe with Microslop and ICE, and your privacy is not violated, because just we made a law that says so.
It’s almost like the genious idea when Ankela Merkel wanted to rely all German energy on Russian Gas and Oil, because then there would be peace in Europe.
I seriously envy German and France public institutions right now. I would love to work inside a linux/opensource environment and being one to bring it to life. (I only have linux at our household incl. Some falily members) I hate that my job doesn’t atleast offer the option of a linux machine. I mean intune works on Ubuntu and redhat
I guess it depends.
For you it might be a blessing. For someone that isn’t comfortable with computers in general that may be very intimidating.
Also this process of going full linux might takes years.
And finally a job is a little more than the tools provided. I worked on linux system in said public administrations and they suffer almost always from very very limited budgets. The cyber security culture is almost non existent. The fear of change is prevalent everywhere. Leadership changes his mind all the time for major IT projects.
So it’s absolutely not rosy.
So for now this is the first step toward sovereignty and much less expensive systems but this will be a very painful process.