France will ban civil servants from using American platforms, including Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams, for video conferencing, a spokesperson for the relevant department told Politico, UNN reports.
Details
The decision, part of an effort to shift government operations to its own technological platform, comes amid growing sensitivity in Europe about deep reliance on American services.
The Prime Minister's office has prepared a notice requiring civil servants to use Visio, video conferencing software developed by the country's Interministerial Digital Directorate (Dinum). It runs on infrastructure provided by the French company Outscale.
The notice will be published "within a few days," a Dinum spokesperson said.
This follows Sunday's statement by David Amiel, Minister Delegate for Public Service, that France would seek to implement its own video conferencing platform by 2027.
Last summer, France ordered officials to abandon WhatsApp and Telegram and instead use Tchap, an instant messaging service developed exclusively for civil servants.
Visio is already used by 40,000 employees, including most ministries and some of their subsidiaries, such as the French National Center for Scientific Research.
Dinum aims for 250,000 users. The agency will monitor compliance with the transition and may block video content streams from other video tools over the state internet network in the coming months, the report said.