France has officially launched a major shift towards digital sovereignty, planning to eliminate the Windows operating system and other American software tools from the state administration.
France's Interdepartmental Digital Directorate (DINUM) announced on April 8, 2026, that it is starting to migrate workstations to Linux.
The decision affects about 2.5 million civil servants.
All ministries must present their plans to eliminate non-European dependencies by autumn 2026.
By 2027, the Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex and GoTo Meeting platforms will be completely replaced by the French open source alternative Visio.
With this move, the French government wants to ensure that state communications and sensitive data remain under European jurisdiction and are not at risk of foreign surveillance.
The measure should end the strategic dependence on US tech giants in terms of pricing, rules and software evolution.
Calculations show potential savings of up to €1 million per year for every 100,000 users by switching to open source solutions.
In addition to operating systems and video tools, the directive also covers antivirus software, artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, databases, network equipment, collaboration tools (such as Slack) and email services (Gmail).
The transition starts first in the Digital Government Unit (DINUM), with the entire administration expected to follow this model in the coming years.