France abandons the use of Microsoft Teams and Zoom

France will give up the American meeting applications Microsoft Teams and Zoom by next year, says Euronews. All government agencies will switch to the replacement French Visio platform.

The decision to give up is part of France’s strategy to abandon the use of foreign, especially US, software. The goal is to guarantee the security and confidentiality of electronic communication, says the French Minister of Civil Service and Public Administration Reform David Amiel According to Euronews.

France also plans to abandon the use of, for example, Google’s email service Gmail and the instant messaging program Slack, which is popular in the workplace.

The Visio platform has been in test use for about a year, Euronews says. It currently has around 40,000 users.

Addiction American digital applications have recently raised concerns in Europe.

HS reported earlier in January French judge Nicolas Guilloustawho was denied access to a number of everyday apps after US President Donald Trump’s the administration placed Guillou under sanctions.

Aalto University researchers Jaakko Kilpi, Otto Kässi and Vili Lehdonvirta last year found out where the digital services offered to citizens by Finnish agencies and ministries work. Of the 137 digital services aimed at citizens, 64 percent operated on the servers of US companies.