Addio Palantir: Berlino e Parigi progettano la propria dorsale digitale

The growing desire for technological independence from the USA is advancing the cooperation between Germany and France. As part of the German-French Council of Ministers on Friday, both governments decided to strengthen European data sovereignty and counter the dominance of US tech corporations in the security and military sectors. A pillar of this strategy is the development of a European “digital backbone”. It is intended to create a viable alternative to military software and surveillance tools from the USA.

The big data giant Palantir is particularly in focus. The European preference for its systems is crumbling. France’s domestic intelligence agency has announced it will terminate its contract with the US company. Previously, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution had already decided against Palantir and in favor of the French alternative ChapsVision.

Paris is now also promoting its AI-powered military command platform Arcadia. The French executive is positioning it as a counter-proposal to the controversial Palantir system Maven, which is currently in use at NATO, for example. Although circles within the alliance recently stated that there was no real European alternative. However, the joint declaration after the talks between Friedrich Merz (CDU) and Emmanuel Macron shows a change in course.

Solidarity on AI Security
In parallel, Federal Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger (CDU) and his French counterpart Anne Le Hénanff want to strengthen security in the AI sector. The core of this initiative is a partnership between the new German AI Security Institute and its French counterpart Inesia.

The institutes are to ensure the mastery of so-called frontier AI and support the EU’s AI Office in enforcing the AI Act. The ministers also intend to coordinate European frequency policy to ensure sovereign satellite communication.

Beyond digital infrastructure, the two states agreed on steps in classic defense and industrial policy. For the multi-billion euro, largely halted fighter jet system FCAS, the partners are focusing on pragmatism: they agreed on a common standard. It is intended to ensure that fighter jets, drones, and other aircraft from different countries of origin can communicate seamlessly with each other in operation.

For the MGCS land system, which is intended to replace the Leopard 2 and Leclerc tanks with a network of manned and unmanned vehicles, both sides agreed to launch a research program. It will focus on autonomous driving, sensor technology, and battlefield networking.

In space, cooperation on reconnaissance satellites and the use of European launch vehicles such as Ariane 6 will be intensified. In addition, there are economic policy agreements. Stefan Rouenhoff from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and the French Minister of Industry Sébastien Martin signed declarations on the resilience of value chains, securing critical raw materials, and deepening the EU internal market.

Could you please ask the people that would suffer if the want the alternative and not just the effin simple “we don’t want this kind of crap”? No eh?

I guess it’s slightly better to have our own intelligence tech, but how about no?

France – Germany ? When was the last successful thing between these two (if there ever was) ?

Is it going to be based on windows?

that they were linked to it in the first place is a disgrace

We can make our own EU sovereign surveillance hell hole!

And as we know its super easy to build state of the art data analytics and AI platforms. Europe and especially European governments have a long history of doing these.