The issue is longstanding. French military digital reliance on the United States has often been flagged through reports and parliamentary inquiries. However, what sets the current moment apart is the context: a Trump administration openly exploiting technological dependencies as strategic leverage, NATO’s recent adoption of a US AI platform for its command structure, and the DGSI’s extension of its contract with Palantir for three more years. All indicators point to heightened risks.
Palantir, an unparalleled contractor
Initially, the partnership was meant to be temporary. In 2016, after the November 13, 2015 attacks, the DGSI urgently relied on Palantir. France lacked a domestic solution capable of handling such vast data volumes swiftly to monitor jihadist networks. Palantir became the default choice. Nearly a decade later, this contract has been renewed for an extra three years.
This extension is included in the recent report on “France’s Dependencies on Foreign Powers,” prepared by deputies Aurélien Saintoul (LFI) and François Cormier-Bouligeon (Together for the Republic) for the National Defense and Armed Forces Commission, which we reviewed.
Their assessment is unequivocal. They warn of “the danger represented by the renewal of the DGSI contract with Palantir,” citing three concrete threats: the potential transfer of French data to the US, the risk of losing access should bilateral ties sour, and the gradual crowding out of national alternatives doomed to fail against such an entrenched incumbent. Crucially, the deputies stress that dependence on the US differs fundamentally from reliance on other partners in nature and scale.
To grasp the gravity of this contract, one must understand Palantir’s background. Founded in 2003 in Silicon Valley, the company benefited from early funding from In-Q-Tel, affiliated with the CIA. It serves major US federal agencies (CIA, FBI, Pentagon), and its co-founder Peter Thiel is a prominent figure within the American conservative right, closely linked to Donald Trump. Its Gotham platform, used by the DGSI, enables large-scale cross-referencing and analysis of diverse data types—a tool praised for its effectiveness by intelligence services. Yet France has no control over the software’s source code, core architecture, or its long-term maintenance. The reports state plainly: “control of the domestic situation must remain sovereign.”
A national tender to find a successor was launched in 2022 under the name OTDH (Heterogeneous Data Processing Tool). By 2023, three contenders emerged: Athea (a Thales-Atos/Eviden partnership), Blueway, and ChapsVision, often nicknamed the “French Palantir.” None secured the contract as the DGSI prioritized operational continuity—an understandable choice given the complexity of migrating a live intelligence platform. Nevertheless, the deputies reject this practical concern becoming a permanent justification. They warn that the more entrenched a system becomes, the costlier it is to replace, and they call for breaking free from this cycle.
ITAR, the Cloud Act, minerals: America’s strategic toolkit
Dependence on the US extends beyond market dominance; it includes a legal and operational arsenal that Washington openly wields to preserve its technological and commercial edge.
The report cites numerous examples. In 2012, the US blocked modernization of French AWACS planes due to sensitive components. Training for Reaper drone pilots was limited to US soil, with slots decreasing as US Air Force demands grew. The ArianeGroup’s VMAX hypersonic glider’s development suffered a year-long delay after Washington denied access to suborbital test launchers, leveraging French dependence to impede a sensitive program. This led ArianeGroup to start its own suborbital launch initiative. There are lingering concerns that the US can remotely intervene on F-35 fighter jets’ cloud systems or manage operational maintenance.
Besides operational constraints, legal frameworks concretely bind dependencies. The ITAR and EAR regulations grant the US extraterritorial control over any equipment containing US components, however minor. This isn’t hypothetical: a 2019 parliamentary report highlighted how ITAR is used “as a weapon serving the commercial and strategic interests of the United States to the detriment of their European allies,” citing challenges in selling the Rafale to Egypt, blocked because of US components in MBDA missiles included in the deal. These warnings were long ignored. Currently, French defense companies file nearly a thousand license requests annually with US authorities, risking multimillion-dollar fines for the slightest infringement.
Beyond digital tech, this coercive approach now targets raw materials and critical minerals. Since Donald Trump’s first term, the US has steadily pursued a strategy to secure global strategic resources, bolstered by executive orders from 2017 prioritizing domestic mining revival.
Trump’s return escalated this policy into explicit coercion. Ambitions concerning Canada, holding 34 critical minerals, and Greenland, whose subsoil reportedly contains 25 of the EU’s 34 strategic raw materials, are tangible geopolitical maneuvers. The April 30, 2025 agreement with Ukraine exemplifies this: in return for military aid—which, according to the Kiel Institute, has plummeted by 99% compared to prior years—Washington secured preferential rights to future Ukrainian mining projects.
This paints a daunting picture for France and Europe. The critical mineral race involves three key actors: the US, China—which refines 90% of rare earths globally and began restricting exports including to the US in 2025—and Europe risks being squeezed between these powers, each locking down essential materials needed for GPUs, semiconductors, and batteries. Meanwhile, the America First Arms Transfer policy explicitly uses arms sales “intentionally as a tool of US foreign policy.” The Cloud Act, effective since 2018, also enables US judicial authorities to access data stored by companies subject to US law, even if data is hosted on European servers.
NATO operating on American software
While DGSI’s situation is alarming, NATO’s is even more concerning. In March 2025, NATO adopted the Maven Smart System, also developed by Palantir, for its Allied Command Operations. The contract was finalized within six months—a record for an organization known for lengthy procurement.
Maven Smart System is no mere administrative tool; it is a command and control (C2) platform embedding generative artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms, and real-time data fusion. It profoundly influences how NATO conceives and executes operations: intelligence gathering, planning, situational awareness, and faster decision-making cycles.
The deputies consider this a serious warning sign. They emphasize that selecting Maven introduces “a serious risk of undermining France’s decision-making sovereignty” and that “once implanted, it would completely close the door to European solutions.” Moreover, they argue that France’s autonomy would be severely curtailed, particularly if access were denied, meaning allied command staffs would be operationally blind without Washington’s backing.
The report also notes that “the introduction of Palantir and the certification of Apple devices for NATO agents exemplify American influence within the alliance.” Over two decades, the US has been “developing and formalizing” key doctrinal shifts, directly shaping European military structures. Maven is thus not an outlier but represents the culmination of a long-standing trend.
France does have a response: Artemis IA, developed by ATHEA and supported by a 700 million euro allocation within the military programming law (LPM). Still, the deputies regard it as “far too weak compared to the power of American technology.” The scale is staggering: US tech giants have invested over 700 billion euros into AI recently, roughly 1.5% of EU GDP. French initiatives show promise—Mistral AI achieved decacorn status in September 2025 with 1.7 billion euros raised, and Yann LeCun’s startup AMI Labs secured over one billion dollars at launch in March 2026—but these remain in a different league. The gap is far from a short-term delay.
The tip of the iceberg: Palantir under scrutiny
Palantir draws focused attention, yet it only reveals the surface of a far deeper structural issue. A framework agreement with Microsoft dating back to 2008 underpins the digital work of 220,000 Ministry of the Armed Forces personnel via INTRADEF and Active Directory. Originally beneficial, merging historic ministry intranets, this now represents a critical vulnerability. The deputies are frank: “this accepted reality is now questioned by strategic actors who openly use all levers as pressure tools.” They acknowledge that “an immediate and complete abandonment of Microsoft is unrealistic without threatening the armed forces’ operational capacity.” Sovereign alternatives like LaSuite and Hexagone have emerged but remain marginal in adoption.
The hardware landscape is equally revealing: 85% of the Ministry’s computer equipment purchases come from ten foreign suppliers. From processors and servers to ruggedized battlefield gear, France presently lacks national control over these supply chains in the near term.
The cloud situation highlights this paradox. Although the armed forces maintain sovereign infrastructure for sensitive data—a commendable feat—these rely on US components such as Intel processors, Nvidia GPUs, and AMD chips. The deputies rightly note, “possessing infrastructure does not necessarily equate to autonomy.” By late 2025, Google Cloud and Oracle secured contracts with NATO’s NCIA agency, intensifying American standardization pressures over allied cloud services.
Particularly concerning are GPUs. Every French AI system, including Artemis IA, depends on Nvidia graphics accelerators, over which the company holds near monopoly status worldwide. This hardware foundation underpins the software sovereignty France aims to build, but it remains, for now, reliant on a publicly traded American firm’s cooperation.
What if Washington cuts off the supply?
Aurélien Saintoul and François Cormier-Bouligeon do not call for complete technological disengagement, acknowledging total digital sovereignty is unrealistic. Instead, they demand a focused, rigorous strategy to gradually reduce the most critical dependencies, backed by a binding timeline and adequate resources.
The report also highlights a commonly overlooked aspect: French reliance tends to solidify precisely where national capabilities are absent. Once a foreign technology is adopted, breaking free becomes challenging—the cost of domestic alternatives appears prohibitive—and historical ties with Washington diminish urgency. This dynamic is far from new. In 2019, deputy Françoise Dumas noted that several EU states advocated for European strategic autonomy while consistently purchasing American tech. Six years on, this trend has deepened and expanded into the digital arena. This repetitive cycle over three decades has shaped the dependency framework detailed in the report.
Palantir’s dependence has long been portrayed as temporary; French alternatives frequently promised but perpetually delayed. Contracts keep getting renewed. Should Washington, for any reason—be it diplomatic pressure, commercial strategy, or shifting priorities—decide to halt access, the issue is not whether France has a backup but whether it can develop one in time.
Original article: opexnews.fr
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