France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/10/france-to-ditch-windows-for-linux-to-reduce-reliance-on-us-tech/?utm_campaign=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic&fbclid=IwdGRjcARF-TxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR7CSIe400MBWVyGk_p3dCYXF5eqZ-tQ1AvlwEWHKtW7GEqzJRaqAlvdC08Zzg_aem_JDlhkwCLCeYRfLvCfR-ovw

France is trying to move on from Microsoft Windows. The country said it plans to move some of its government computers currently running Windows to the open source operating system Linux to further reduce its reliance on U.S. technology.

Linux is an open source operating system that is free to download and use, with various customized distributions that are tailored and designed for specific use cases or operations.

In a statement, French minister David Amiel said (translated) that the effort was to “regain control of our digital destiny” by relying less on U.S. tech companies. Amiel said that the French government can no longer accept that it doesn’t have control over its data and digital infrastructure.

The French government did not provide a specific timeline for the switchover, or which distributions it was considering. Microsoft did not immediately comment on the news.

This is the latest effort by France to reduce its dependence on U.S. tech giants and use technology and cloud services originated within its borders, known as digital sovereignty, following growing instability and unpredictability on the part of the Trump administration.

Looming over the internet lasers and firestarting phones companies were touting at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this month, was a more nebulous but much larger announcement: a pan-European cloud called EURO-3C.

EURO-3C’s backers—Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica, dozens of other European companies, and the European Commission (EC)—aim to fill a gap. U.S.-based cloud giants dominate in the EU, and European policymakers want their growing portfolio of digital government services on a “sovereign cloud” under full EU control.

But the EU lacks a real equivalent to the likes of AWS or Microsoft Azure. Indeed, any effort to build one will inevitably run up against the same U.S. cloud giants.

Execs from 24 European cloud and digital service providers are urging the European Commission to legislate for real tech sovereignty – not the illusion of it – in the upcoming Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA).

The CEOs, drawn from tech trade association CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe), signed a letter calling on EVP for Tech Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen to embed several key principles in CADA [PDF].

They want the EU’s first cloud and AI legislation to cultivate a competitive native cloud ecosystem, rather than enable what CISPE calls “sovereignty-washing” – measures that would further entrench the dominance of global hyperscalers, most of them American.