France says it wants to regain control of its digital infrastructure, with one watchword: sovereignty. The State recently announced the roll-out of a video conferencing solution across the French administration, targeting up to five million users, an initiative publicly championed by David Amiel.
While the intention is understandable and legitimate, a technical analysis of this announcement reveals a major confusion: treating hosting sovereignty as if it were genuine technological sovereignty.
It is time to ask the right questions.
Can a so-called “sovereign” solution be chosen without a call for tenders, without competition, without public debate on the existing technological alternatives?
Public procurement requires, as a matter of principle, competition and transparency. Committing the State to such a structurally important technology building block without public debate raises a legal question… but above all a strategic one.
Because a decision of this kind is not limited to choosing a supplier. It sets the long-term direction of an entire industrial sector. Every technology decision made by the State is a market signal.
When that signal favours non-European building blocks for core layers — real time, protocols, artificial intelligence — it automatically weakens the local ecosystem.
Sovereignty cannot be decreed. It is built through public purchasing choices. And those choices can either structure a national and European sector or create a lasting dependency.
Who really controls the real-time engine?
The announced solution is based on LiveKit, which provides the real-time audio and video engine — the most critical component of any video conferencing solution.
LiveKit is a US company valued at close to one billion dollars, which has recently raised more than 100 million dollars and openly pursues global growth. That is a legitimate approach for a private company, but it raises questions when State use is at stake.
Several questions therefore arise:
- Who really controls the critical stack?
- Who controls the product roadmap?
- Who defines the real-time standards?
- Who controls the artificial intelligence building blocks?
If the development, maintenance and security of the real-time engine depend mainly on a non-European player, then a structural dependency takes hold. A contractual dependency, hard to reverse and incompatible with any ambition of technological sovereignty.
Where is the regulatory consistency?
The State imposes extremely strict requirements on private players when it comes to sensitive or strategic data, notably through the frameworks and qualifications overseen by ANSSI, the French cybersecurity agency. That is normal. And essential.
But are those same requirements applied with the same rigour when the State chooses its own technology building blocks?
Where are the public demonstrations of the actual level of security expected?
Where is the evidence that can be challenged, audited and verified?
On infrastructure this structurally important, trust cannot rest on statements.
Publishing a detailed accreditation sheet or an official security opinion would provide the expected transparency. At this stage, the lack of visibility sustains a doubt that, on matters of sovereignty, should not exist.
Is the solution really end-to-end encrypted (E2EE)?
Without end-to-end encryption, with the State having exclusive control of the keys, strategic confidentiality remains theoretical.
Video conferencing is not a neutral tool. It is a space where strategy is shaped in real time. Where decisions are made that commit organisations, industries and sometimes national interests. Where sensitive, even classified, information circulates.
Underestimating this strategic dimension of communications amounts to weakening decision-making autonomy itself.
Can AI functions work without depending on US law?
As soon as transcription, automatic summaries or conversation analysis are involved, the fundamental questions are clear: which stack? which APIs? which jurisdiction? which technical and contractual dependencies?
If audio or text flows or metadata are processed by players subject to the Cloud Act, this data can, legally, be accessible to foreign authorities. That prospect is incompatible with State or sovereign uses.
The debate the State is still avoiding
Digital sovereignty is not a question of hosting. It is a question of genuine control over the stack, the cryptography, the maintenance and the ability to develop a solution without depending on non-European players.
These requirements are neither theoretical nor out of reach. French solutions already exist, designed precisely to meet these criteria, and deployed in some of the most critical environments — States, defence, energy, banks, sensitive infrastructure.
Private Discuss is one of them. They show that operational digital sovereignty is possible, here and now.
What is missing today is not the technology. It is the courage to choose.
Op-ed by Jean-Pierre LACH, co-founder and CEO of Private Discuss
Source:
- LiveKit engine (open source): https://github.com/livekit/livekit