Last week, France announced that it was transitioning the operating systems of its government desktop PC from Microsoft Windows to variants of Linux. According to the official government press release, the move is part of the country’s broader strategy to reduce its overdependence and reliance on “extra-European” digital technologies.
While the French government hasn’t specifically indicated when it intends to make the transition or the specific distributions it is considering, the transition is expected to start with devices at the French government’s digital agency (DINUM).
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The State can no longer simply acknowledge its dependence; it must break free. We must become less reliant on American tools and regain control of our digital destiny. We can no longer accept that our data, our infrastructure, and our strategic decisions depend on solutions whose rules, pricing, evolution, and risks we do not control. The transition is underway: our ministries, our operators, and our industrial partners are now embarking on an unprecedented initiative to map our dependencies and strengthen our digital sovereignty. Digital sovereignty is not optional.
French Minister of Public Action and Accounts, David Amiel
If you’ve never seen the name, Linux spans several free and open-source operating system builds developed by communities and organizations. It ships in these different flavors known as distributions (or distros), including Ubuntu, Fedora, and many more.
Many distros are favored for stability, security, customization, and cost-effectiveness, which could pose a great threat to Microsoft’s massive market share with Windows if more countries and organizations hop on this Linux bandwagon.
Microsoft’s decision to pull the plug on Windows 10 late last year seemed unpopular among most users, even with its Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, which felt like a last-minute snooze button, acting as a sort of band-aid on a bleeding system rather than a solution.
Consequently, this has fueled the rise of groups such as “End of 10”, which advocate for users to abandon Microsoft’s ecosystem entirely in favor of Linux following the end of Windows 10. They cite the absence of intrusive ads and telemetry tracking as the primary incentives behind the surge in adoption.
This isn’t the first initiative or move by the French government to assert its digital sovereignty. In January, France announced its plans to ditch Microsoft Teams and Zoom for a domestically developed platform, called Visio, across its public institutions by 2027.
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