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The French government wants to free itself from American influence. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced on Tuesday morning that French firm ChapsVision has been chosen to replace US company Palantir in handling large-scale data processing for the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI).
“We cannot accept new strategic dependencies in the digital sphere”, the prime minister argued, saying he wanted to “build real autonomy” so as “not to depend on the goodwill of certain partners, who are able to turn off the tap of access” to AI.
A break after ten years of partnership
The announcement comes as a surprise, as the DGSI renewed its contract with Palantir last December for a further three years. The exact terms of the transition and the timetable for rolling out the new system have not yet been set out by the French authorities.
Founded by billionaire Peter Thiel with backing from the CIA, Palantir sells military-grade, AI-based data integration tools to governments and companies. Its cooperation with the DGSI dates back to the 13 November 2015 attacks. Faced with a security emergency and a massive increase in the volume of data to be analysed, the French services turned to Palantir’s Gotham platform, then seen as one of the few systems capable of meeting such operational needs.
Ever since the first contract was signed in 2016, and then renewed in 2019 and again in 2022, French intelligence chiefs had regularly portrayed this reliance on US technology as a temporary solution, pending the emergence of a credible national alternative.
A climate of mistrust towards the United States
The unpredictability of US President Donald Trump on the international stage has led European allies to question whether decades of American support in areas such as security and technology can still be taken for granted.
Washington last week ordered US artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic to deny “any foreign national” access to its two most powerful models, Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5, citing “national security”. The order prompted reactions from several declared or potential presidential candidates in France, who warned of an “AI war” and stressed the need for independence from the United States.
Earlier this year, the German army said it would no longer use Palantir, while the United Kingdom is reviewing the £330 million (€382 million) data contract signed between the National Health Service and Palantir following political and parliamentary pressure.
London mayor Sadiq Khan has also blocked a proposed £50 million contract between Palantir and the capital’s police force, citing value-for-money and procurement concerns.
€655 million for AI in France
Sébastien Lecornu also said that France plans to invest €655 million in artificial intelligence and roll out a single chatbot for all government services.
France will also develop a public health chatbot for the state health insurance agency Ameli, along with a new digital platform designed to simplify access to public data.
For ChapsVision, the decision marks a major milestone in its development. The company aims to become one of Europe’s leaders in data intelligence and agentic artificial intelligence, and had already won in 2024 an initial DGSI contract covering the processing of heterogeneous data. The contract awarded today will allow it to take charge of handling vast quantities of data, a field historically dominated by Palantir.