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A fragile digital autonomy
Digital sovereignty is often presented as a key strategy for Europe. In theory, every state should be able to control the data of its citizens and guarantee its protection. In practice, a large part of this data is hosted by American cloud providers, who are subject to extraterritorial laws. This means that even sensitive information stored in France can fall under the reach of U.S. legislation.
U.S. law extends beyond its borders
The most striking example is the Cloud Act, adopted in 2018. This law requires all U.S. companies, such as Microsoft, Google, or Amazon, to provide American authorities with the data they hold, even when stored outside the United States. In other words, data hosted on a server in Paris can be requested from Washington.
This extraterritoriality is not new. Before that, the Safe Harbor and Privacy Shield agreements tried to regulate data transfers between Europe and the United States. Both were invalidated by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which considered that they did not protect Europeans enough from U.S. surveillance programs. Today, a new agreement the Data Privacy Framework was introduced in 2023, but many experts already criticize it as just another patched solution, without real progress.
Risks for Europe and France
This dependence on U.S. law and technology has several consequences:
- Sovereignty at risk: when a foreign power can access health, research, or defense data stored in Europe, true independence is impossible.
- Economic impact: European companies, even when choosing local hosting, are indirectly subject to foreign rules. This weakens the competitiveness of European cloud solutions against U.S. giants.
- Political challenge: the ability of a state to protect its citizens now depends partly on the decisions of another country. This imbalance reduces Europe’s political autonomy.
This is why digital sovereignty often comes back into political debates, both in France and at the European level.
Europe’s attempt to regain control
In response, several initiatives have been launched. The most visible is GAIA-X, a project created in 2019 to build a secure and interoperable European cloud infrastructure. The goal is to offer a credible alternative to American services, while ensuring compliance with European law.
In France, the ANSSI developed the SecNumCloud certification, which guarantees that providers respect high security standards and are free from foreign influence. French players like OVHcloud or Outscale are part of this effort.
However, these initiatives face challenges: high costs, limited adoption, and lack of visibility compared to the powerful U.S. brands. On top of that, the growing demand for storage and artificial intelligence makes it difficult to create a fully sovereign alternative quickly.
Toward European digital sovereignty?
The European Union is trying to strengthen its position with ambitious regulations: the Data Act to manage data use, the AI Act to regulate artificial intelligence, and industrial strategies for microchips. Yet the question remains: is regulation enough without strong industrial and technological investment?
Digital sovereignty cannot be only about laws. It also requires infrastructure, skills, and European champions capable of competing on a global scale. Without this, sovereignty risks remaining an idea more than a reality.
A long road ahead
The situation highlights a paradox: Europe has strong ambitions, but still relies heavily on U.S. providers and their legal framework. The Cloud Act clearly shows that European sovereignty is fragile. At the same time, local and European initiatives prove that awareness is growing.
The real question is whether Europe will manage to turn intentions into concrete results. In the end, it comes down to this: do we want to be the true owners of our data, or accept that it is governed by laws written elsewhere?
Sources :
- https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4943
- https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/j_6/fr/
- https://commission.europa.eu/document/fa09cbad-3d95-45d3-b2bd-5d0f8e6c7b6a_en
- https://www.senat.fr/rap/r21-424/r21-4241.pdf
- https://cyber.gouv.fr/secnumcloud
- https://gaia-x.eu
- https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/FR/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32023R2854
- https://www.consilium.europa.eu/fr/press/press-releases/2024/03/13/artificial-intelligence-act/
- https://www.cnil.fr/fr
