France to replace US videoconferencing wares with unfortunately named sovereign alternative
- Reference: 1769519481
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/01/27/france_videoconferencing_visio/
- Source link:
The plan, [1]announced on Monday , is to shove US videoconferencing tools out of the French public sector altogether, with Zoom, Teams, Webex, and Google Meet making way for a state-built alternative that Paris says keeps its data, infrastructure, and legal exposure firmly at home.
Microsoft admits it 'cannot guarantee' data sovereignty [2]READ MORE
The platform, called Visio, is being developed and rolled out by the government's Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs (DINUM) and is set to become the default, and eventually exclusive, video meeting tool for public servants.
The announcement was made by the Ministry of the Economy and Finance as part of France's broader push for digital sovereignty. The government says that using foreign videoconferencing platforms exposes official communications to overseas infrastructure, laws, and political pressures it would rather avoid.
"This project is a concrete illustration of the Prime Minister and the Government's commitment to regaining our digital independence," said David Amiel, minister delegate for the Civil Service and State Reform. "We cannot risk having our scientific exchanges, our sensitive data, and our strategic innovations exposed to non-European actors. Digital sovereignty is simultaneously an imperative for our public services, an opportunity for our businesses, and insurance against future threats."
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According to the announcement, Visio has already been tested by tens of thousands of civil servants and is now being scaled up for wider use across ministries, agencies, and public bodies. The plan is for Visio to be in routine use across the state by 2027, after which external videoconferencing licenses would no longer be renewed. Large parts of the public sector, including tax and social security bodies, have already started the switch.
[4]
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Security is the main sales pitch, with Paris stressing that Visio runs on infrastructure it controls and is built to comply with French and EU data protection and confidentiality rules. There's money in it as well, at least on paper: Paris estimates that moving 100,000 users off commercial platforms saves around €1 million a year in license fees.
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[7]AWS outage exposes Achilles heel: central control plane
[8]Feeling lonely? Microsoft Copilot can now listen to your every word, watch your screen
[9]Older developers are down with the vibe coding vibe
France is also keen to stress that Visio is not meant to be a bare-bones substitute. The platform will, eventually at least, boast transcription and live captions, but without shipping the audio off to someone else's cloud. The subtext is less about convenience and more about avoiding US jurisdiction over data.
However, there is one small but telling irony lurking in the announcement. Calling a state videoconferencing platform "Visio" all but guarantees confusion with [10]Microsoft's long-established diagramming software of the same name , suggesting that, while France is moving to cut US dependencies, it may not have spent quite as much time on branding.
Whether Visio sticks or joins the long list of state IT projects that never quite replace the tools people actually like will only become clear over time. For now, though, France has made its position clear: when it comes to official video calls, Uncle Sam is no longer invited. ®
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[1] https://presse.economie.gouv.fr/souverainete-numerique-letat-generalise-visio-sa-solution-de-visioconference-securisee-et-souveraine-a-destination-des-agents-publics/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/25/microsoft_admits_it_cannot_guarantee/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aXjvQchTaLxIF_PVcqt56AAAA0o&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aXjvQchTaLxIF_PVcqt56AAAA0o&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aXjvQchTaLxIF_PVcqt56AAAA0o&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/04/microsoft_teams_bugs_could_let/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/20/aws_outage_chaos/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/16/microsoft_copilot_updates/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/28/older_developers_ai_code/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/08/microsoft_visio_ios/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Yeah, I'm sure the entire country of France will fall and kiss-n-lick MS' feet begging for forgiveness after the lawyers sending the objections.
/s
If they can't successfuly argue in court that diagramming software is distinct enough from communication software that people are unlikely to confuse them, then M$ will have more $ courtesy of the French state. Yes, you can sue in France.
Except the french govt can quite easily alter the laws of France and this is something that few politicians are going to fight as it would make them open to being branded as poodles of the American govt.....
I'm hoping that they knew damn well that calling it Visio would piss Microsoft.
I'd guess they didn't give a damn either way.
Enough of the name, its the interface
MS might not fight too hard over the name, but the look (and I presume feel) is remarkably like that of the MS product it is designed to replace: https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/en/produits/visio
Deja vue all over again
Worked on a new product for quite a while at a software company. Marketing came up with a name for the product, which was announced to big fanfare. All of us devs immediately googled the name and, 2 seconds later, found an IBM product with exactly the same name! Unfortunately, we were bought by IBM a year later who changed the name.
Re: Deja vue all over again
Maybe it was a cunning scheme to get IBM's attention so they'd buy the company.
Re: Deja vue all over again
According to an grey beard university lecture of mine circa turn of the millennium - It's why the Americans pronounce SQL (which Brits pronounce as S Q L) as sequel as that was apparently the original name for it, until it came to light there was an existing language or product called sequel and the name was then changed, however the Americans love their pronounceables.....
Worked on a software product which the product manager, in his infinite wisdom, decided to call 'Xchange'. Everybody pointed out the name was confusingly similar to a certain Microsoft product. He was adamant that there would be no problem for our customers. I suggested all the devs chip in a fiver to buy him a clue.
The numerous open source efforts not good enough for the French then?
A quick bit of searching shows this is based on an Open Source project. It's in github and called suitenumerique/meet (it seems)
So the rest is just a bit of flag-waving.
At least it's not a white flag, like in the UK.
Quite. For avoidance of doubt, good for them (i.e. the French).
French-speaking person here, to report that "visioconference" is the main term used here, even if videoconference is also correct. And many people will also shorten it to "visio", which made finding a name for the tool easy, trademark aside.
Curiouser and curiouser…
" French-speaking person here, to report that "visioconference" is the main term used here, "
Even Microsoft use the term visioconference in their online French language material eg
[1]Visioconférence gratuite : Grâce à la version gratuite de Microsoft Teams, opérez une transition aisée entre travail en distanciel et en présentiel.
The word also bears the imprimatur of the [2]Académie
VISIOCONFÉRENCE nom féminin Étymologie : xxe siècle. Composé de visio‑, tiré de vision, et de conférence.
[1] https://www.microsoft.com/fr-fr/microsoft-teams/free-video-conferencing
[2] https://www.dictionnaire-academie.fr/article/A9V0963
Ahh, I took too long to type my reply. I'm sure I'm slightly inaccurate in my response, being only a resident so I defer to you on this :-)
Viso
Perhaps they can rename to viso (< visere – to look at, to visit etc) meaning here "I visit" which perhaps isn't too shabby a reference to videoconferencing.
I would have imagined the Académie Française might have dipped its oar into these muddy waters typically suggesting a perfectly rational but entirely unusable French alternative.
Does anyone in France actually possess an ordinateur personnel or must they make do with a PC ?
Re: Viso
I would have imagined the Académie Française might have dipped its oar into these muddy waters
I think you'll find they have, "visioconférence" has long been an official equivalent to the English "videoconference". It's not unusual to hear "Il y aura un visio ce soir" .
Re: Viso
I think you'll find they have,
You are correct. I just checked.
I guess given its currency and Microsoft's own use of "visioconférence" generically means co·existence of the two uses of Visio in the Francophone world is inevitable.
Re: Viso
However Visio the Microsoft product may get elbowed out for similar reasons. Maybe a re-named Dia will replace it.
"Allo, allo!"
Just my two eurocents!
Re: "Allo, allo!"
" Good moaning everybiddy. Sorry. Perhaps my French cod be butter. "
Perhaps after all, the UK really did have to leave the EU…
Re: "Allo, allo!"
Because our lack of skill in our own language was being so glaringly exposed by other nations?
Re: "Allo, allo!"
As anyone with poor language skills will know, when you visit France, you will at some point have your poor french grammar corrected, in perfect English, by someone working at a supermarket counter, or a motorway services, or similar....
'Visio' is the/a generic term for videoconference in French, so I don't know if that makes it un-trademarkable or not but it at least makes sense. MS Visio must confuse the heck out of francophones though since it doesn't do what they'd expect it to do.
Having said that, so many computer terms are weird in France...
'computer' is 'ordinateur' because it sounds too much like 'con-putin' nob-$lut in French.
'email' is 'courriel' because emaille means 'enamel' although email is starting to get used as well.
most of the other changes are a bit boring
The french govt 20+ years ago tried to mandate people use the french term instead of email, which worked to a degree for civil servants but a french friend of mine put it succinctly - everyone else just calls it email, same as Spain where email is easier to say than correo electronico and well...everyone knows what you mean worldwide when you say email.
Church of the SubGenius
Why do team communication tools get these confusing names? Slack is not a follower of the Church of the SubGenius.
Microsoft themselves were caught out in the same way back in around 2014 when SkyDrive (now OneDrive) launched in the UK as BSkyB (originally a merger of satellite broadcasters but also a major ISP. etc.) took them to court over the name and they lost.
100% sovereign.
Works on both Windows and Apple systems.
Er... Well, sovereign apart from that.
Unless it is compatible, it won't be any use should public officials want to speak to the general public or anyone in academia or industry, as they will all be using Teams or Zoom or Facetime.
Re: 100% sovereign.
Although Governments do have a knack of forcing everyone else to use the same systems as the Government use if you wish to communicate with them ;)
Open Source?
Or at least a published protocol so we don't have 27 different national systems and a separate incompatible Eu one
No doubt Microsoft's brand lawyers are already drafting their objection to the proposed name...