---
title: "To Bolster Cybersecurity, France Gives Google the Guillotine"
description: "The French government is taking major steps to break its reliance on non-European corporations. Last month, the military ousted Google's software."
date: "2018-11-20"
modified: "2018-11-20"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/bolster-cybersecurity-france-google"
categories:
  - "Artificial Intelligence"
  - "Cybersecurity"
  - "Future Society"
  - "Google"
tags:
  - "ai"
  - "artificial intelligence"
  - "cybersecurity"
  - "france"
  - "Google"
---

# To Bolster Cybersecurity, France Gives Google the Guillotine

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/bolster-cybersecurity-france-google.png>)
*\<em\>Image: Tag Hartman-Simkins\</em\>*

## Do You Hear the People Sing?

In recent months, the French government has taken serious steps to boost its and Europe’s cybersecurity, in part by ousting foreign corporations that could spy on French leaders and citizens.

Most notably, according to a new [story in *WIRED*](<https://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-france-silicon-valley>), the French Ministry of the Armed Forces announced last month that [the French military will no longer](<https://www.defense.gouv.fr/salle-de-presse/communiques/communiques-de-florence-parly/cp_communique-du-ministere-des-armees>) default to Google's search engine, instead using a French one [called Qwant](<https://www.qwant.com/?l=en>), which says it doesn’t exploit user data.

## Singing the Songs of Angry Men

The underlying logic is that the fewer [non-European powers](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/experts-warn-of-potential-government-interest-in-accent-detecting-tech>) that dominate the French and European markets, the fewer backdoors the NSA and other foreign agencies can use to spy on the government and people of France, reports *WIRED*. And with that independence, according to *WIRED*'s analysis, France is less likely to become a "digital colony" of America or China.

That push was inspired by Edward Snowden’s 2013 leaks that revealed the NSA’s ongoing monitoring of foreign governments, as well as the more recent Cambridge Analytica scandal and other leaks and data hacks within the giant technology and social media corporations based in the U.S.

## Water the Meadows of France

The French government’s concerns over digital sovereignty are well-founded.

Kai-Fu Lee, a venture capitalist and former executive at Apple and Google, recently wrote in his book "AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order" that "AI will further cleave open the divide between the haves and the have-nots."

Lee also predicts that AI have-nots could become subservient to the countries that AI leaders — very same tech giants France just ousted — call home. If it wants to nip any risk of America or China’s digital colonialism in the bud, France’s pushes for virtual self-dependence could not be timelier.

**READ MORE:** France is ditching Google to reclaim its online independence \[*[WIRED](<https://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-france-silicon-valley>)*\]

***More on cybersecurity:*** ***[REPORT: IT’S EASY TO HACK AN ENTIRE GENERATION OF MILITARY WEAPONS](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/hack-military-weapons>)***

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)