France Ditches Microsoft Teams, Zoom for Homegrown ‘Sovereign’ Platform

By 2027, France plans to implement the Visio platform throughout all government agencies. This will utilise France’s in-house video conferencing technology, which will take the place of the American platforms Microsoft Teams and Zoom, the nation stated on Monday.

The French government declared in January 2026 that Visio, a “sovereign platform” created domestically, would take the role of American collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom. The programme seeks to lessen reliance on foreign technology while safeguarding the secrecy and security of public communications.

The action is a component of France’s plan to restore control over vital digital infrastructure and cease utilising foreign software vendors, particularly those from the United States. It occurs at a critical juncture as France, like the rest of Europe, approaches a turning point in terms of digital sovereignty.

David Amiel, minister for the civil service and state reform, stated, “The goal is to end the use of non-European solutions and guarantee the security and confidentiality of public electronic communications by relying on a powerful and sovereign tool.”

The French videoconference platform Visio will be used instead, the administration said on Monday. The platform has about 40,000 users and has been undergoing testing for a year.

Visio is a component of France’s Suite Numérique initiative, a digital ecosystem of independent technologies intended to take the place of US internet services like Slack and Gmail. These tools are not for use by public or private businesses; they are for civil servants.

Using technology from the French start-up Pyannote, the site also features speaker diarisation and meeting transcripts powered by artificial intelligence.

Additionally, Outscale, a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes, a French software business, hosts Viso on its sovereign cloud infrastructure.

According to the French government, moving to Visio could reduce licensing fees and save up to €1 million annually for every 100,000 users.

The action also coincides with European concerns over its excessive dependence on US IT infrastructure in the wake of last year’s US cloud disruptions.

Amiel stated, “This approach demonstrates France’s dedication to digital sovereignty in the face of growing geopolitical tensions and concerns about foreign surveillance or service interruptions.”

Visio is an open-source tool created by the French Interministerial Digital Directorate (DINUM). It is hosted on Outscale, a Dassault Systèmes subsidiary that makes use of sovereign cloud infrastructure that has been certified under the SecNumCloud security badge from France.

Real-time subtitling from Kyutai is anticipated by summer 2026, and the platform has AI-powered meeting transcription and speaker recognition leveraging technologies from French businesses like Pyannote.

Some key reasons the French country wants to ditch the US platforms are outlined below:

• Digital Sovereignty: To recover control over vital digital infrastructure and private internal data, France wants to “detoxify” from American technology.
• Security Concerns: The US CLOUD Act, which permits US authorities to access data even if it is stored outside of the USA, has created a legal vulnerability that has led to persistent concerns about foreign monitoring.
• Cost Savings: According to government estimates, eliminating foreign licences will result in annual savings of almost €1 million for every 100,000 customers.
• Uniformity: The goal of replacing a “patchwork” of various tools (such as Webex and Google Meet) with a single standard system is to lower security exposure and facilitate inter-ministerial cooperation.

Currently, the platform is solely meant to be used by public administration and civil workers, not by the general public or private businesses.