On March 14, the publication of the contract between the Ministry of National Education and Microsoft once again highlighted a major contradiction of the digital state strategy. On the one hand, an official doctrine praising digital sovereignty and calling for the use of qualified cloud solutions. On the other, a contractual commitment of several tens of millions of euros with the American publisher, without significant competition. Does the contrast with the ambitions displayed at European level questions: would digital sovereignty become a purely declarative principle?
A regularly contradicted national doctrine
The Interdepartmental Directorate of Digital (DINUM) has recalled since 2021 that solutions handling sensitive data must imperatively be hosted on SECNUMCLOUD qualified environments. Messaging, collaborative tools and office automation are explicitly among the services concerned. However, the contract passed by rue de Grenelle covers all internal digital uses of national education, including those related to messaging and collaboration, via Microsoft offers (Office 365 and others). All for an amount of up to 152 million euros.
This administrative choice goes against the instructions addressed to rectors and academy secretaries in a note dated February 28, recalling the formal exclusion of non -sovereign solutions. The central administration thus frees itself from the rules it imposes on its own decentralized services.
The European agenda relegated to the background
On a European scale, digital sovereignty is established as a structuring axis of the political project. The European Commission has multiplied initiatives: strategy for the European Cloud, support for sovereign data infrastructure (GAIA-X, IPCEI Cloud), legislations strengthening control over transatlantic transfers (RGPD, invalidation of Privacy Shield, Data Act). These measures aim to reduce technological dependence on non-European actors, in particular American and Chinese.
In France, this ambition finds an institutional echo in political discourse. But in fact, strategic decisions – including in sovereign ministries – continue to favor dominant market solutions, to the detriment of sovereign or open source actors. The logic of continuity of service and the familiarity of users with Microsoft tools seem to take precedence over the requirements of legal security, resilience and technological independence.
The deputy Philippe Latombe, one of the few to alert publicly on this contradiction, sums up the absurdity of the situation in a post published on LinkedIn (ironically owned by Microsoft):
While current transatlantic relations should encourage our administrations to the greatest caution concerning the computer solutions they choose and push them to emancipate themselves from American giants, some of them persist and shamelessly signs. »»
Normalized dependence
The contract between the Ministry of National Education and Microsoft is not an isolated case. It is part of a series of public contracts where the explicit reference to a single supplier, in this case Microsoft, has become the standard.
In parallel, open source solutions remain confined to local experiments or speeches in principle. Their lack of lobby, standardized interfaces or contractual guarantees comparable to those of cloud giants helps marginalize them in major public purchase procedures.
Towards selective sovereignty?
The gap between intentions and acts is obvious. Digital sovereignty is invoked to prohibit Tiktok on civil servants, but ignored when it comes to entrusting millions of administrative and educational documents to a publisher submitted to the American ACT Act. The double standard no longer goes unnoticed.
The question posed by the deputy Philippe Latombe-asking for the denunciation of the contract-is not solely of the technical-legal debate. It refers to a broader question on the capacity of the State to develop its purchasing practices, to support a European digital ecosystem and to align its operational choices with its political commitments.
