The Cold War that ended in the 1990s was between the Western bloc led by the United States and communist-centered countries like the USSR. When this war ended, the world's population rejoiced because the confrontation between the great powers seemed to be over. But in 2026, a new Cold War broke out between the United States and its NATO allies because they wanted to take Greenland.
As a sign of protest and to ensure that their communication structure was free from external threats, the French government announced that they would stop using software from foreign countries such as Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex. It will be replaced by Visio software produced by a local firm. Visio's integration as a teleconferencing platform for the French government will be fully completed by 2027.
Visio was developed by DINUM (Inter-Ministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs) and is supported by ANSSI for the highest security standards. Visio also supports other local services such as the SecNumCloud cloud system via Dassault Systèmes' Outscale, supports AI transcription by Pyannote, and produces real-time subtitles via Kyutai AI.
So far, Vision has over 40,000 AI users in the trial phase, with plans to expand to 200,000 civil servants. CNRS, Assurance Maladie, DGFiP and the Ministry of Defense are among the first agencies to fully switch to Visio.
Digital sovereignty is now seen as a security measure for Western bloc countries after they can no longer hope that the United States will not suddenly block their access to technology. Last year, an International Criminal Court (ICC) judge lost access to his Microsoft account after being placed on a sanctions list by the United States. This was all due to the ICC's decision to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for genocide in Gaza.
