France announced Monday it will phase out Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex from all government services by 2027, replacing them with domestically developed platform Visio in a push for digital sovereignty.
Minister Delegate David Amiel unveiled the plan during a visit to the National Centre for Scientific Research, confirming Visio will become the exclusive videoconferencing tool for French public servants. No external licenses for US platforms will be renewed after the deadline.
Visio completed a year-long pilot with 40,000 users and is deploying to 200,000 government agents. The platform runs on sovereign cloud infrastructure hosted by Outscale, a Dassault Systemes subsidiary certified under France’s cybersecurity agency SecNumCloud standard, keeping government data beyond the reach of US laws, including the CLOUD Act.
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The National Centre for Scientific Research will replace Zoom across 34,000 employees and 120,000 researchers by March, while the Ministry of Armed Forces, the national health insurance system, and the tax authority are also adopting the platform in the first quarter.
Visio integrates AI-driven transcription from French startup Pyannote with real-time captions expected in summer 2026. The platform supports 150 participants with recording, screen sharing, and chat features.
Government estimates indicate savings of approximately €1 million annually per 100,000 users migrating from commercial licenses. French officials argue the current mix of US platforms creates security vulnerabilities and locks the state into foreign infrastructure.
The shift is part of France’s Suite Numérique initiative to replace American services, including Gmail and Slack, with sovereign alternatives exclusively for state use. It follows the December US sanctions against senior EU officials, including former commissioner Thierry Breton, over alleged digital censorship.
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