Home page for the entire suite (in French) with some screenshots: https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/

Code bases are on GitHub and they use English there: https://github.com/suitenumerique/

Dev handbook (in English): https://suitenumerique.gitbook.io/handbook

Not French and I can't say I personally tried deploying any of them, but I've been admiring their efforts from afar for a while now.

France does a few things right; scandinavian countries too (I include The Netherlands here, though they are not really scandiavians but in their decision-making, they are often a bit like a hybrid between France and Denmark or Sweden). Spain and Italy lag behind but sometimes, surprisingly, also do the right thing. The real troublemaker is ... Germany. For a reason nobody understands, Germany is like an US satellite in everything it does, but only ... half-hearted. Naturally, "the economy" is one reason (export centric country so it is readily blackmailable by the USA here) but even then you have to ask why german politicians have absolutely no pride at all. France has pride - that's good and bad but good in this context. (UK is more an US colony really after Brexit anyway, with Farage probably going to win - and cause more damage. Brits just don't learn from this.)

Each one of these actions is a stepping stone the world is taking as a direct consequence of U.S. political negligence. And however difficult it was to render this consequence, it will be tenfold, or hundredfold, as difficult to reverse course.

We should pay penalties for our abandonment of good faith global engagement. And economic damage really is the key to the heart of these United States of Three Corporations in a Trench Coat.

We’ve seen companies and CEOs paying millions in bribes to be close to the president. Now this aligns their financial interests with shifting our foreign policy. Not how it ought to work, but it’s the world we have.

I love that there is a lot more enthusiasm about OSS adoption within EU software devs, but at a population or government level there doesn't appear to be any coherent strategy to gradually replace US tech other than these knee-jerk headliner moves that don't move the needle much.

As a software consumer I would love it if there were open-first software standards adopted within this large of a population that would force US Big Tech to actually compete rather than rest on their monopoly power. But I am pretty skeptical and pessimistic about this actually being able to happen, given the historical failures of the EU.

Slack is a delight compared to Teams. And I'm not even alone in this, everyone is still using slack until it gets pried off our hands. So help me God anyone mentions Copilot one more time...

There's already an extremely well known program called "Visio", namely Microsoft Visio, and it is included in many of the same Microsoft commercial office products that include Microsoft Teams. If you tell someone to switch from Microsoft Teams to Visio a lot of people will assume you mean Microsoft Visio and get rather confused.

Meanwhile... Micro$lop: Aha! Sharpen your lawyers, mes amis!

I think one question, which we might be seeing a bit here and there, is if the Americans decide that no, you can’t also do that. You must accept the intolerable terms or be punished.

One analogy to our current moment in software is to think of skyscrapers in cities. In the early days of skyscraper construction, most knowledge needed to build one was concentrated in Chicago and New York, so those were the only places really building serious skyscrapers. It took a while but eventually the knowledge diffused out into the industry and the world.

Now we take for granted that high quality skyscrapers are in every city, with the tremendous space efficiency they give.

So is the same diffusion happening to software? It really looks like it! Knowledge of building and operating large-scale software seems to have reached a point where countries and companies no longer need to rely on Silicon Valley companies (and Microsoft) for software. (Note this is less about location and more about capability level, the skyscrapers/cities analogy breaks a little there)

Anyway every country and company can now build its own complex software. It’s been like this for a bit, but current US circumstances did the world a favor when it nudged Europe to get serious.

Software is headed for an exciting and multi-color future and I’m so here for it.

Thats why the aggressively integrate every AI tool where they can - like copilot to make large companies and government stick to their solutions. I wish government will find am even better way to embed LLM to their tools…

France wants to really really reallllllyyyy believe they do.

Poland and Germany lets France say such fanciful words, but they keep their actual thoughts for themselves. They know France has an Adler inferiority complex, so they let them pretend.

I'm looking for examples here - Israel has a very specific relationship with the tech sector, as does Taiwan, China, South Korea, etc. Even within the US, North Virginia, Huntsville, and Manhattan have specific relationships with Silicon Valley.

Is the idea to copy Silicon Valley's stuff into government sponsored, "to committed to fail" operations? Create complementary tech ecosystems? Recruit Silicon Valley veterans and put them in charge, or just fire them after they get their tech?

Just look at how hard it is to come to a decision on something like allow Huawei to build a telephone network. Is it a good idea? Smart people say, Huawei should be allowed to provide the dumb pipes of the system, but not the high level stuff. Anything sensitive needs to be reviewed by domestic security services.

Is that the approach to America?

It seems like the article saying: "copy America's SaaS offerings." Not clear how that makes you digitally sovereign.

Hopefully the EU as a whole can rally behind this.

What are they gonna switch to? I'll bet it ends up being a fork of Zoom or Teams. It's all just theater.

Tact and diplomacy meant that previously the USA was seen as, yes being all about itself, but not threateningly so when it came to its allies/friends. As soon as that veneer was removed the reaction was always going to be, "we'll look after ourselves then" - using the same tools China has (see: China having its own linux distribution)

I’ll still buy France’s wine.

The substantial point is that they don't want freedom, they only want to steal like others steal, to do business like others do business, instead of doing something different.

The end of globalism also marks the end of the global internet and the transition to regional internets.

Make Europe great again. Bring back creativity. Bring back jobs. Build a talented workforce that stays local instead of migrating to the US. Be independent. Stand tall. Do all of these things and preferrably do them now.

America and China's rise shouldnt be zero sum. It should lift the world. Europe forged the path we all follow. Come back to it.