[HN Gopher] Digital vassals? French Government 'exposes citizens...
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Digital vassals? French Government 'exposes citizens' data to US'
Author : ColinWright
Score : 178 points
Date : 2025-07-20 11:26 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (brusselssignal.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (brusselssignal.eu)
| ColinWright wrote:
| Seen here:
|
| https://www-senat-fr.translate.goog/compte-rendu-commissions...
|
| ================================================================
|
| Quoting the translation:
|
| _Mr. Dany Wattebled , rapporteur . - Mr. Carniaux, as Director
| of Public and Legal Affairs, you represent Microsoft France
| before public decision-makers. Can you guarantee before our
| committee, under oath, that the data of French citizens entrusted
| to Microsoft via UGAP will never be transmitted, following an
| injunction from the American government, without the explicit
| agreement of the French authorities?_
|
| _Mr. Anton Carniaux . - No, I cannot guarantee that, but, again,
| it has never happened before._
|
| ================================================================
|
| Original:
|
| _M. Dany Wattebled, rapporteur. - Monsieur Carniaux, en tant que
| directeur des affaires publiques et juridiques, vous representez
| Microsoft France aupres des decideurs publics. Pouvez-vous
| garantir devant notre commission, sous serment, que les donnees
| des citoyens francais confiees a Microsoft via l 'Ugap ne seront
| jamais transmises, a la suite d'une injonction du gouvernement
| americain, sans l'accord explicite des autorites francaises ?_
|
| _M. Anton Carniaux. - Non, je ne peux pas le garantir, mais,
| encore une fois, cela ne s 'est encore jamais produit._
|
| ================================================================
|
| Thread on Mastodon:
|
| https://toot.cat/@devopscats/114879479938557566
| Disposal8433 wrote:
| > Mr. Anton Carniaux . - No, I cannot guarantee that
|
| He's smart, he doesn't want to go to jail. But all the
| governments and current and/or past administrations are guilty
| of pretended to be retarded since we all knew for the past 30
| years that Microsoft was not to be trusted.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Having worked for the French state and wrestled a few times with
| its IT services, I can tell you that the reason for choosing
| Microsoft isn't cost, or "efficiency".
|
| It's that they only know Microsoft, they don't want to learn
| something else, and if there's a problem, it's Microsoft's fault,
| no theirs, so they don't have to deal with their own
| incompetence.
|
| If you want an anecdote, we were working with SAS, a statistical
| software which required costly licences (more than a million EUR
| for a few dozens of workers). I suggested to switch to R or
| Python to the top director, who agreed.
|
| First meeting with the service in charge, the chief opens with
| "ok, we are asked to change, but the goal here is to show that we
| tried, and found that it's not possible."
|
| I resigned a few months after, as everything was in the same
| vein.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| The French state is one thing, the Polytechnique is another. My
| impression is the old-school network administrators at French
| universities are fiercely protective of their de facto right to
| make technical decisions regarding equipment and software. So
| this part surprises me.
| stef25 wrote:
| This addiction to Microsoft is _everywhere_ and it 's terrible
| for everyone involved. So many small orgs and NGOs paying
| through the nose for what can be done for free with Google Docs
| & Sheets.
| mr_mitm wrote:
| Relying on yet another American mega corp instead of
| Microsoft doesn't seem very wise.
| gunalx wrote:
| ^foss alternatives like onlyoffice, nextcloud...
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| NGOs pay little compared to businesses, AFAIR.
| oytis wrote:
| Using proprietary software that is given away for free is
| even worse than paying for proprietary software - at least
| you have a contract in the latter case.
|
| Governments should pay software engineers and system
| administrators (or infrastructure engineers if you like) to
| build and run their systems, ideally open sourcing whatever
| makes sense
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Google isn't free for non-personal use.
| dataflow wrote:
| When you say first meeting, is the implication that they were
| lying about even trying?
| buckle8017 wrote:
| He outright said their goal was to lie about trying.
| crinkly wrote:
| This is fairly normal. I've seen it in every corporate job
| I've had.
|
| Most people seemed to have a retirement clock running and
| wanted to avoid doing anything they don't give a crap about
| until then.
|
| Giving a crap about your job is an outlier.
| Yeul wrote:
| It's funny that capitalism rewards jobs that have meaning-
| healthcare, education- the least.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| ok so "funny" but historically, it has been worse. Like
| the legend of a warrior King in a region towards modern
| Hungary.. the school teachers would be ordered to stop
| work when the King and his military advisors rode on the
| main road for inspection. All the teachers were required
| to stop and clean the litter by the road as the King
| passed by. Perhaps the implication is -- if you do not
| have my military protection, then your school would be
| burned by invaders? actually not wrong in some places,
| but can you blame that scene on "capitalism" ? Want to
| guess the expenses of the armor and servants for the King
| and their party? probably more coins than were spent on
| teachers, who were paid in farm produce and exchange
| services?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _capitalism rewards jobs that have meaning- healthcare,
| education- the least_
|
| Doctors and researchers do quite well when they're
| effective.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Sounds like they were honest about lying, less confusion than
| lying about lying and helps prevent the unwanted outcome of
| accidentally succeeding. Not succeeding helps with job
| security, the problem justifying your job will continue to
| exist. Since such skills are in demand at all levels of
| bureaucracy successfully failing to deliver at a lower level
| will open up opportunities to fail at a higher level.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| Sounds like Germany, and it's not just public services.
|
| I used to work part-time in 1st level IT support in a local
| hospital when I was younger.
|
| The main "theme" of my superior's work subjects there
| (2009-2016) was the migration from XP to 7. You heard that
| right.
|
| And apart from the usual Office- and AD-Lock-In, the most
| problematic workstations of course were always ones with very
| specialized software. Virtualization and terminal services were
| in use, but the whole selling point of Windows was mostly put
| ad absurdum already, because they needed Windows licenses for
| dedicated machines running e.g. specialized MRT software, but
| those weren't even part of the main network anyway. They needed
| arcane syncing procedures anyway and Windows provided no value
| whatsoever on these devices. Same for the patient monitoring
| systems on ICU beds. These were using some "embedded" Windows
| and were rarely working in a stable way at all, nor way they
| connected to the networks running AD or the CIS (edit: seems
| it's called HIS in English)
|
| CAD and stuff in the office divisions was similar, but with
| less integration needs (apart from network printing)
|
| What I'm trying to say is: like in many offices, any slight
| change made users hostile, updates cost obscene amounts of work
| and money, and Windows didn't provide much more value compared
| to SAMBA. That is dated experience, I know.
|
| But MS has not shown to be a trustworthy company in any of my
| work experience so far.
|
| It was impossible to create working solutions without MS, yes,
| but the reasons for that never seemed to be grounded in actual
| value provided by an MS-centric software and networking
| structure.
|
| It was just the one available commercial solution with enough
| adoption, and MS has been milking their target markets with
| these strategies for a very long time.
|
| Making themselves "indispensable", even in machines where their
| software was used to run a terminal server, basically.
|
| Hell, in my town, 3 years ago, they started to replace subway
| train LED signals with crappy Windows-CE-based software.
|
| The effects are still noticeable... the whole infrastructure is
| still 80% worse compared to 10 years ago.
|
| You recognize the useless Windows licenses by the occasional
| Desktop (seriously, google "cologne KVB windows trashcan"....),
| 90deg-tilted display, and of course 20% of the signage is out
| of operation on average now.
| sampl3username wrote:
| I also had an encounter with government software...
|
| I think the long-lasting solution will be to move to a web-
| based application system, instead of depending on Desktop
| applications made for Windows or Linux. Using a web app
| system, the government only has to concern itself with proper
| development and maintenance of servers and web apps, and the
| public workers can use any operating system with a web
| browser.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| I agree with this. When it comes to domain-specific b2b
| software, pretty much everything that doesn't require
| native resources or performance inaccessible from the web
| platform should provide a web-based frontend (even if just
| as a minimum).
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| And that would be better why exactly? Bloated browsers
| trying to phone home, even if only to search for updates,
| or denying access because of overblocking DNS, false
| software security signatures, whatever? Ja. Klasse! I
| fucking know about Electron & Tauri. And V8, Node, Bun,
| TS. Hmmm so geil. Da steht mir der Schwanz steil. Oder
| auch einfach nur die Haare zu Berge.
|
| Waldmeisterlicher Wackelpudding. Ahoi.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| > the public workers can use any operating system with a
| web browser
|
| With IE6^W Chrome, you mean. Nobody's going to bother
| testing on anything else.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Go SWB, paint it green. Kolle Alaaf!
|
| Just kidding. Triggered some memories.
| arnaudsm wrote:
| I've lived the exact same scenario in a large public company.
| Large orgs and misaligned incentives are not exclusive to the
| public sector.
| duxup wrote:
| Even when I see "so and so place is switching to X" I always
| think "uh, do your current Microsoft people ... know how to do
| that?"
|
| I'm all for training and making the switch, but you gotta get
| your teams motivated / what they need to do the job. If not IT
| can resist like few other orgs.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Having worked for the French state and wrestled a few times
| with its IT services, I can tell you that the reason for
| choosing Microsoft isn't cost, or "efficiency
|
| While this is generally not wrong, the French state still uses
| and creates open source software extensively. Gendermerie
| Nationale have their own Linux distribution ; Ministry of
| Foreign Affairs runs Debian for diplomatic personnel. Multiple
| pieces of public software was developed out in the open
| (including the government SSO and the COVID tracking app).
|
| So while there is definitely bad, it has been getting
| progressively better over the past ~10 years.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| There's simply no option for digital sovereignty other than
| cultivating a strong domestic software industry. As the source
| details, much of this exposure is being done with full
| understanding of the risks and costs.
|
| The article also refers to some report claiming that European
| solutions are " _wrongly_ judged to be too costly or inefficient
| ". I'd be interested to read it if anyone has a translation. Even
| for something as basic as word processing software, every case
| I've seen so for the alternatives quickly lands on "you have to
| accept rough edges because that's the cost of data sovereignty" -
| much easier for a hobbyist or politician to say than an IT
| director charged with making sure your organization runs well.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| The French state is working on a google-docs open source
| alternative: https://docs.numerique.gouv.fr/home/
| ajb wrote:
| The sad part is, both the EU and the UK (which has the same
| issue) have the capacity to do this as we have enough software
| engineers. But most software companies end up being bought out
| by US ones at some point.
| sunshine-o wrote:
| > There's simply no option for digital sovereignty other than
| cultivating a strong domestic software industry.
|
| Yes, but they tried and can't.
|
| Those ideas of domestic computer industry and digital
| sovereignty have been around since the 60s.
|
| The French had Bull which is now Atos and they failed
| miserably.
|
| France was very impressive after WW2, they build almost on
| their own a nuclear weapons, a nuclear energy, aeronautic,
| military industry and impressive space capabilities.
|
| After that you would expect them to have built a serious
| competitor to Intel and Microsoft but they didn't. They can't
| even built basic digital capabilities to support a bureaucracy.
|
| My guess is a very different generation arrived in the 60s-70s
| in the workplace and in charge: the Silent Generation and the
| Boomers.
|
| Those generations were not about building anything but more
| about entitlements and collecting dividends. But of course it
| takes quite some time for things to get really bad. Information
| technologies slowly took over many aspects over our societies
| over the last 50 years and now they find out they do not have
| sovereignty anymore.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Time[1] and time[2] again, the CJEU has ruled that the US stance
| of noncitizens having no standing on privacy issues is
| incompatible with EU law. Time[3] and time[4] again, the European
| Commission has negotiated a functionally identical agreement
| codified in executive orders and declared it "adequate" until the
| court could decide otherwise. Not even the Congress explicitly
| giving[5] the US government powers to compel (among others) EU
| subsidiaries of US multinationals, regardless of what EU law
| says, has changed the equation. Now there's been a presidential
| election in the US that many in the EU are unhappy about.
| *Shocked Pikachu*
|
| > [French MP Philippe] Latombe criticised the US-EU Data Privacy
| Framework (DPF) deal, saying it no longer served EU interests due
| to the US president's "impulsive" nature.
|
| Am I wrong to say that there's something profoundly rotten in
| that statement with regards to the rule of law?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems#Schrems_I
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems#Schrems_II
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU%E2%80%93US_Privacy_Shield
|
| [4]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU%E2%80%93US_Data_Privacy_Fra...
|
| [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act
| kergonath wrote:
| > Am I wrong to say that there's something profoundly rotten in
| that statement with regards to the rule of law?
|
| Why do you think that? The agreement was negotiated under
| certain conditions, it's not really surprising that a change in
| circumstances would make it unfit for purpose.
| hulitu wrote:
| > Am I wrong to say that there's something profoundly rotten in
| that statement with regards to the rule of law?
|
| No. The laws are applied as long as they serve the rulling
| elite. See GDPR for examples. Or the copyright law for examples
| at the other end of the pond.
| sunaookami wrote:
| All you need to know is that the EU Commission sues their own
| data protection commissioner because he ruled that the usage of
| MS365 in the Commission is illegal. So the EU Commission
| happily works together with Microsoft:
| https://www.heise.de/en/news/Microsoft-365-EU-Commission-tak...
| YeahThisIsMe wrote:
| >saying it no longer served EU interests due to the US
| president's "impulsive" nature.
|
| I'd say that if whether or not an agreement serves the EU's
| interests entirely depends on who the US president is, then
| it's not an agreement that serves the EU's interests.
| wmf wrote:
| If migrating off Microsoft would effectively shut down the
| government for a period of time they don't really have any
| choice.
| isodev wrote:
| I think we need a lot more accessible disclosure on the subject
| for the public. Even beyond government services, products
| exposing one to the US should come with a big fat warning.
| hulitu wrote:
| > products exposing one to the US should come with a big fat
| warning
|
| You mean products like Microsoft Windows, Apple's iOS and
| MacOS, Google's Android, Chrome and ChromeOS, Cisco, Fortinet,
| HP, Dell, AWS, Linux, Meta's Whatsapp Facebook and Instagram
| and so on and so forth.
| fsflover wrote:
| > Linux
|
| Citation needed.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Systemd's default dns settings, depending on distro
| defaults.
|
| Yes, it's not the kernel you are probably starting to
| nitpick about, but it doesn't run anywhere else, so far.
| fsflover wrote:
| So it's not Linux but certain privacy-unfriendly distros.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| It's always the same issue.
|
| If you want to move away from <insert US tech giant>, you either
| need to embrace Linux and open source software which requires the
| state's employees to learn a new "stack" of applications which
| means they need to be given appropriate training or you need to
| have you home grown solutions that are as easy to use as their US
| counterparts and were developed within the EU by the EU's member
| countries with the EU's values embedded in them.
|
| The first solution is not going to happen, as Linux is still
| relatively unknown all things considered and I don't see the
| French government employees learning how to use this OS and/or
| the applications running on it by themselves.
|
| Secondly in times of budget cuts like in France currently, the
| government is not about to rip all the Microsoft products off and
| replace them with something that would take years to transition
| to and cost a fortune to implement.
|
| So that leaves the homegrown solution. Unfortunately the work to
| move off of Microsoft et al should have started 10 years ago but
| it hasn't. Europe has completely dropped the ball on tech and now
| it's coming back to bit it in the ass.
|
| The Draghi report from last year was supposed to kick things into
| gear but we will be lucky to see anything coming through within
| the next 5 years and by this stage the US tech giants will have
| entrenched themselves even more in the EU.
|
| I am sorry to say but this is a failure that will resonate for
| the many decades to come.
| luckylion wrote:
| I doubt that the average employee could tell Linux and Windows
| apart if you applied a Window-style skin to Linux.
|
| But at least in Germany, I've seen Windows being written into
| agreements between state governments and trade unions
| representing clerks and employees. Good luck changing those
| without a negotiation running 3 years.
| harvey9 wrote:
| Lots of people would be disrupted by having to move off MS
| Office. Not insurmountably so, and MS ironically helps make
| the case that people can learn new things by often changing
| their own product interfaces.
| realusername wrote:
| If you really want to smooth out the transition, there's
| also companies which would be happy to help you setup and
| maintain your office environnement on Linux.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| A cool idea could be to build a replica of Windows, but
| running Linux and market it to municipalities, NGOs and State
| entities.
| stef25 wrote:
| This site has a heavy pro Russian bias, see for example
| https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/07/europe-still-has-the-power...
|
| Turns out it was founded by an American, who was arrested on
| suspicion of bias-motivated crimes, second-degree assault and
| harassment after attacking a reporter in the USA but currently
| living in Hungary and running some media org there, with ties to
| the right wing Fidesz party. And he is on paper as being the
| founded of brusselssignal.eu
|
| His organization received a big loan from an undisclosed source
| to set up the Brussels organisation and it seems to made up of or
| advised by a rag tag of European right wing politicians.
|
| The whole thing stinks of Russian meddling in Europe.
|
| Sources https://www.szabadeuropa.hu/a/szazhetvennegy-millios-
| kolcson...
|
| https://www.companyweb.be/company/0793608171/free-pub/231068...
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/28/us/patrick-thomas-egan-ac...
| phtrivier wrote:
| Good catch. The OP article is mostly transcript from a Senate
| hearing, so the bias is limited.
| alt187 wrote:
| Yeah, anyone who wants Europe to move away from Our Holy
| American Benefactors, are, uh, uhhh, yeah, russian plants!
| asdff wrote:
| One of these days Europeans will realize they are also part
| of the American empire just in a bit of a dominion status. If
| you host an American military installation, you are part of
| the empire with a fig leaf of domestic policy control that
| keep the bulk of the populace from realizing this. Take a
| look at a map of American military installations. The sun
| never sets on this latest roman empire.
| liotier wrote:
| It took Trump for the Europeans to realize that De Gaulle
| was right.
|
| The consequences of the European Union realizing the were
| the USA's protectorate are not going to please the USA
| though... Buy ITAR-free, buy European !
| hollowonepl wrote:
| I many time heard here in Europe not to trust Chinese appliances
| as these devices do listen to us... is #USA any different?
| moffkalast wrote:
| I think given the NSA's capacity they'll find a way to listen
| to us regardless which devices we use. But we're certainly
| going out of our way to make it easy for them.
| afarah1 wrote:
| I don't see enough talk about reducing the amount of data
| collected in the first place. Even if it's kept within one
| jurisdiction, it can still be the target of a breach by a local
| criminal, a foreign spy, or a new government agency... Cameras on
| every street, cellular antenas on every car, biometrics for
| everything... It may vary from country to country, but an
| expansion on citizen data collection (in one area or another)
| seems commonplace across most governments, and usually with zero
| opposition in "the real world". And unlike products or platforms
| that you can chose to not use, there's hardly any escape from
| those.
| motohagiography wrote:
| these seem like solved problems. in canada, many govt depts have
| procurement rules that state all data must be hosted nationally
| by a custodian subject to national or even provincial law, and
| this has been standard for decades. the firm I work for also
| doesn't use google or microsoft clouds for similar reasons.
|
| the deeper problem is governments are not technology builders and
| cannot produce tech products because they have no unique ability
| to deliver anything anyone subject to them actually wants.
| phtrivier wrote:
| It's interesting that there at least starts to be two opposing
| camp in the executive (some people in French government start to
| push for more sovereignty, some EU governments too, some MEPs,
| etc...)
|
| Of course the rest of the administrations are not there yet,
| there are contracts to abide to, habits, etc... But there is the
| start of a general recognition that overdependence on the US is a
| liability at some level.
|
| Also, it would incredibly more feasible to move IT infrastructure
| back and have some reign on data, then it would be to recover
| from our overdependence on China in terms of... Well, in terms of
| everything physical.
|
| Which means that the first milestone would be to host pour data
| on "sovereign" data centers... Using East-Asian made hardware.
|
| One thing at a time, I guess ?
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Using East-Asian made hardware.
|
| Most DCs are already using "Asian made" hardware such as Korean
| memory chips, Taiwanese power supplies and fabricated chips,
| and Japanese designed storage.
|
| Unless you mean Chinese-made hardware, which would put much of
| Europe in the exact same position, with the added downside of
| supporting a nation that is cooperating with Russia, and is
| strongly in support of a Russian victory [0] in Ukraine. China
| has also begun leveraging export controls on tech transfers and
| outbound FDI as well, so dependency on an external nation would
| remain.
|
| The reality is there is no choice other than America+ or
| Chinese made hardware for EU member states, and as long as
| Russia continues to leverage Chinese dual-use technology, it
| will be a no-go. And the European (in reality German+Dutch)
| ecosystem has largely been stagnant since the 2000s, and
| critical technology like EUV is nominally owned by EU companies
| but developed and manufactured by autonomous JVs within the US.
|
| Either the EU supports Ukraine, in which case there is no
| choice but to deal with America+ or the EU leverages China, in
| which case support for Ukraine would have to stop.
|
| [0] -
| https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316875/ch...
| guiriduro wrote:
| Honestly how hard can it be given Microsoft size (and AWS, and
| Google's) to mandate the intervention of a EU corporate entity to
| manage their IP in the region, full source code, EU cloud assets,
| encryption keys, EU-only support access, collect their royalties
| etc., but essentially act as a privacy buffer wholly unanswerable
| to any US head office or any obligations US law holds the company
| to wrt any EU person, its just a black hole that grants them the
| right to earn money and hold a large market share in the EU. The
| Chinese aren't afraid to do it.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Honestly how hard can it be given Microsoft size (and AWS,
| and Google's) to mandate the intervention of a EU corporate
| entity to manage
|
| Very difficult.
|
| Countries like Ireland, Poland, Czechia, Romania, and Bulgaria
| are heavily dependent on American FDI in their tech industry,
| and the European Council has final say and requires unanimity.
| A rule such as the one you mentioned would smother VC/PE in
| much of the EU, as European funds like Index Ventures and
| Munich Re Ventures are heavily dependent on the US to raise
| capital and build dealflow.
|
| Major European employers like Volkswagen AG, Siemens AG, NXP,
| Phillips, Infineon, and others would also face severe
| retaliation as a result.
|
| It would also set a precedent that would make an alternative
| like China extremely hesitant to invest, as the Chinese
| government heavily utilizes export controls on tech transfers.
| For example, BYD investment in Hungary is largely CDK with the
| core high value components like Batteries being manufactured in
| China. Biren, Huawei, and SMIC would face similar export
| controls.
| guiriduro wrote:
| Major Cloud providers would still need to invest eu-customer
| money in providing eu IT services, this is more a legal,
| security and privacy isolation for big tech players in order
| to maintain their share, extract royalties etc.
|
| Startups that are not in a large marketshare situation
| wouldn't trigger the need for intermediary/isolation so the
| effect on FDI would be limited, and anyway, the tides are
| turning on US capital in general.
|
| Retaliation: I'm not sure the US fiscal and legal overreach
| isn't already in place, e.g. VW dieselgate, export controls
| etc. The US looks after its interests (fair enough), but its
| time the EU levelled the field to protect its citizens, a
| small loss of regional sovereignty for those companies in
| exchange for the EU revenue they continue to make.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Major Cloud providers would still need to invest eu-
| customer money in providing eu IT services, this is more a
| legal, security and privacy isolation for big tech players
| in order to maintain their share, extract royalties etc.
|
| That's already done today with little-to-no acrimony, and
| none of the regulations you mentioned. Where do you think
| much of that FDI in Ireland, Poland, Czechia, Romania, and
| Bulgaria is coming from?
|
| > Startups that are not in a large marketshare situation
| wouldn't trigger the need for intermediary/isolation so the
| effect on FDI would be limited, and anyway, the tides are
| turning on US capital in general
|
| It's not just startups. American BigTech GCCs represent the
| bulk of tech related FDI in Czechia, Romania, Poland, and
| Bulgaria, and Ireland's US-friendly business law has lead
| to a severe dependency on the US for capital [1].
|
| > the tides are turning on US capital in general.
|
| American Capital markets continue to remain larger in size
| than the entire EU's combined [0]. And China's is roughly
| in size to the entire EU. An the reality is, European
| capital markets are nowhere near as unified as either the
| US or China's.
|
| > its time the EU levelled the field to protect its
| citizens, a small loss of regional sovereignty for those
| companies in exchange for the EU revenue they continue to
| make
|
| But how?
|
| The EU isn't significantly unified, and depends on
| unanimity within the European Council. As I mentioned
| before, Ireland, Czechia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Poland
| would be a significant veto to any shift against the US.
|
| Furthermore, French and German domestic giants continue to
| compete against each other in every industry, which has
| lead to cooperation failures such as the FCAS snafu
| recently [2].
|
| There is no "EU grand strategy", as major member states
| like Germany, France, and others push back or compete with
| each other internally.
|
| And given the fact that the Chinese players are
| cannibalizing European competitors within China, major
| European companies like Volkswagen and Siemens are now
| heavily dependent on the US as an alternative market.
|
| [0] - https://www.sifma.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2023/07/2024-SIFMA-...
|
| [1] - https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-fd
| i/forei...
|
| [2] - https://on.ft.com/4n77YpQ
| dlgeek wrote:
| AWS is doing that: https://www.aboutamazon.eu/news/aws/built-
| operated-controlle...
| crop_rotation wrote:
| The EU majorly screwed up by not focusing on a homegrown software
| ecosystem. The Chinese, due to either luck or competence or both,
| have a parallel big tech ecosystem compared to America and that
| is a huge advantage.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Europe is in love with azure too bizarrely.
| sofixa wrote:
| Anyone using Azure is bizarre.
|
| Just search for Azure on wiz.io's blog, the amount of terrible
| yet easy to exploit security vulnerabilities, often with shit
| responses from Microsoft, is terrifying. It clearly
| demonstrates nobody with power within the Azure org cares about
| security. How can _anyone_ trust them with anything remotely
| critical? Let alone the terrible UX and absurdly eventual
| consistency.
|
| Yeah, yeah, I know, the people who know and understand this
| aren't the ones getting wined and dined to buy it. But still..
| hunglee2 wrote:
| EU obviously needs a Great Firewall - this would force foreign
| big tech to host data within the EU and subject these companies
| to ironclad EU legal jurisdiction. Naturally, some companies will
| not comply and withdraw services, clearing the way for domestic
| EU operators to emerge. This may seem like an unpalatable choice
| but it really is the only way back toward digital sovereignty -
| right now, the EU has been in 'trust me bro' situation with US
| big tech - a huge and accumulative risk
| bpavuk wrote:
| wait, do they (at least attempt to) spearhead it with Mistral and
| La Suite? La Suite works good...
|
| _regard francais perplexe_
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