{"slug": "france-is-pulling-microsoft-off-2-5-million-government-computers", "title": "France Is Pulling Microsoft Off 2.5 Million Government Computers", "summary": "France's Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs (DINUM) announced on April 8, 2026, that it will move its own workstations from Windows to Linux and require every ministry and public operator to file a plan by autumn to reduce dependence on non-European technology, affecting 2.5 million government computers. The move includes replacing video-conferencing tools like Teams and Zoom with the state-built Visio tool by 2027, and follows France's Gendarmerie's successful use of Ubuntu-based GendBuntu since 2008, which saved about two million euros annually in licence fees.", "body_md": "*France is not ripping Windows off 2.5 million government computers overnight. The real story is narrower, but it is still serious: Paris is making every ministry account for its dependence on non-European tech and show how it plans to get out.*\n\nFrance has put Microsoft on notice, but the clean version matters. On April 8, 2026, the Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs, known as DINUM, said it would move its own workstations from Windows to Linux and coordinate a wider government plan to cut dependence on non-European technology. Every ministry and public operator must map its weak points and file a plan by autumn covering desktops, collaboration tools, antivirus software, AI, databases, virtualisation and network equipment.\n\nThat is not symbolism. It is procurement with a deadline.\n\nDavid Amiel, France's public action minister, framed the shift in blunt terms, saying the state could no longer just note its dependence and had to break free from it. The official DINUM statement went further than a normal software memo: France wants less exposure to tools whose rules and prices it can't set, and whose risks and future it can't predict. You can agree or disagree with the politics, but you shouldn't miss the direction of travel.\n\nThe 2.5 million figure belongs mainly to another part of the same strategy. In January, France's finance ministry said the government would roll out Visio, a DINUM-built video-conferencing tool, across state services by 2027, replacing a mix of Teams, Zoom, GoTo Meeting and Webex. Visio already had 40,000 regular users and was being deployed to 200,000 agents, with CNRS due to replace Zoom for 34,000 staff and 120,000 associated researchers by the end of March. That is where the full civil-service scale comes in.\n\n[A Leaked Microsoft Video Shows an OS Where Copilot Replaces the Desktop](https://startupfortune.com/a-leaked-microsoft-video-shows-an-os-where-copilot-replaces-the-desktop/)\n\nA leaked, roughly two-year-old video verified by Windows Central shows Project Aion, an unreleased Microsoft prototype OS codenamed \"Win3\" that replaces the Start menu and taskbar with a Copilot-only shell running web apps through Edge. Microsoft declined to comment on the project's status, and the leak lands just as Windows 11 users are revolting... - [microsoft copilot replaces windows start menu and taskbar](https://startupfortune.com/a-leaked-microsoft-video-shows-an-os-where-copilot-replaces-the-desktop/) - [leaked microsoft project aion operating system prototype video](https://startupfortune.com/a-leaked-microsoft-video-shows-an-os-where-copilot-replaces-the-desktop/)\n\n## France already has a working example\n\nFrance is not starting from a theory paper. Its Gendarmerie has used GendBuntu, an Ubuntu-based operating system, since 2008. Canonical's case study on the project said the force upgraded 85,000 PCs to Ubuntu Desktop and saved about two million euros a year in licence fees. Later reporting on the Gendarmerie's own figures put the estate at more than 100,000 workstations by 2024.\n\nThat example matters because government software migrations usually fail in boring places. A spreadsheet macro breaks, a case-management system expects Microsoft formats, a training plan arrives late - nobody notices the dependency until the contract is already signed.\n\nSchleswig-Holstein is the cleaner current test. Germany's northernmost state has roughly 30,000 government workstations, and by late 2025 it had moved close to 80% of its administrative desktops outside the tax administration to LibreOffice. Its email migration finished on October 2, 2025, moving more than 40,000 mailboxes and more than 100 million emails and calendar entries from Exchange and Outlook to Open-Xchange and Thunderbird, according to the state government.\n\nThe money is clear enough to get attention. Schleswig-Holstein says it is avoiding more than 15 million euros in annual licence costs, against a nine million euro one-time investment in 2026 for migration and open-source development. The remaining machines are the honest part of the story: specialist applications still tied to Microsoft formats. The office suite is not the hard part. The old software around it is.\n\n## Brussels is moving too\n\nThe European Parliament made the same point from a different angle on June 4, 2026, when it switched the default search engine on its internal Firefox and Edge browsers from Google to Qwant. Agence Europe reported that Qwant, the French search engine launched in February 2013, became the default while users remained free to choose another provider.\n\nThat is a small browser setting and a large signal. Google still dominates European search. Most people will not stop using it because one institution changed a default. But defaults are policy in miniature, and Brussels just chose a European search provider over the American incumbent on its own machines.\n\nThe pressure behind these decisions is not only cultural resentment toward Silicon Valley. Under the U.S. CLOUD Act, American providers can face legal demands for data even when infrastructure is hosted abroad, which sits uneasily beside Europe's privacy rules and public-sector security demands. Add years of EU enforcement against U.S. platforms, including the European Commission's July 2026 fine of 890 million euros against Google under the Digital Markets Act, and the political mood is easy to read.\n\n[Microsoft Merges Its Copilot Apps as It Builds an AI Super App](https://startupfortune.com/microsoft-merges-its-copilot-apps-as-it-builds-an-ai-super-app/)\n\nMicrosoft began merging its consumer and business Copilot apps into one assistant on August 13, cutting features like Podcasts and Group Chat while pushing toward a full Copilot \"Super App.\" The move comes as Copilot's share of the paid AI subscriber market has slipped to 11.5%, far behind ChatGPT. - [how to merge Copilot consumer and business apps](https://startupfortune.com/microsoft-merges-its-copilot-apps-as-it-builds-an-ai-super-app/) - [Microsoft Copilot Super App unified assistant rollout](https://startupfortune.com/microsoft-merges-its-copilot-apps-as-it-builds-an-ai-super-app/)\n\nPrivate companies now have more options than they had five years ago. Proton launched Proton Workspace on March 31, 2026, bundling Mail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Meet, VPN, Pass and its Lumo AI assistant from Switzerland. LibreOffice, Firefox, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Organic Maps and OsmAnd already cover plenty of everyday work. Don't pretend switching is painless. It isn't. But the excuse that the alternatives do not exist is weaker than it used to be.\n\nThis is not a consumer boycott of Windows or Gmail. Billions of people will keep using American tools. They work, colleagues use them, and switching is expensive. Governments face a different calculation. When a ministry depends on software it cannot fully govern, the convenience starts to look like a strategic liability.\n\nWatch the ministry plans due this autumn. France has not yet proved it can move the whole state away from Microsoft. It has only forced each part of the state to count the cost of staying where it is.\n\n**Also read:** [Claude Code's Usage Limit Boost Ends September 14 With a Real Cut](https://startupfortune.com/claude-codes-usage-limit-boost-ends-september-14-with-a-real-cut/) • [Polygon Secretly Fixed Bugs That Could Have Frozen Its Whole Chain](https://startupfortune.com/polygon-secretly-fixed-bugs-that-could-have-frozen-its-whole-chain/) • [Cathie Wood's ARK Sells AMD Again and Pours Money Into Broadcom](https://startupfortune.com/cathie-woods-ark-sells-amd-again-and-pours-money-into-broadcom/)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/france-is-pulling-microsoft-off-2-5-million-government-computers", "canonical_source": "https://startupfortune.com/france-is-pulling-microsoft-off-25-million-government-computers/", "published_at": "2026-08-30 08:39:52+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-30 08:51:49.635230+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy"], "entities": ["DINUM", "Microsoft", "David Amiel", "Visio", "GendBuntu", "Canonical", "Schleswig-Holstein", "LibreOffice"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/france-is-pulling-microsoft-off-2-5-million-government-computers", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/france-is-pulling-microsoft-off-2-5-million-government-computers.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/france-is-pulling-microsoft-off-2-5-million-government-computers.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/france-is-pulling-microsoft-off-2-5-million-government-computers.jsonld"}}