American digital tools have achieved a very high level of penetration in Europe, accounting for around 80% of products, services, infrastructure, and intellectual property—both in the professional sphere and on our smartphones. There is a strong temptation for Europeans to turn a blind eye to this monopoly, which is moreover very costly (in terms of licensing). This overlooks the fact that the current geopolitical context, increasingly threatening for Europe, fundamentally changes the situation, and that consumer interest cannot be the sole justification for our voluntary dependence. This is all the more true given that European-based alternatives do exist—for messaging, cloud services, browsing, search engines, office software, VPNs, and even social networks (see, for example, www.european-alternatives.eu).
European citizens are not necessarily aware of the questionable or even dangerous uses that may be made of their personal data, despite highly protective European legislation. Nor are they sufficiently familiar with the alternatives available within the Union, which therefore struggle to reach critical mass. Yet they are concerned. It is urgent to act to escape this dangerous digital trap—for their security and ours, for the protection of their data, and for our sovereignty. Noteworthy initiatives already exist within the Union, with tools developed by European companies—some of which have historically been supported by the Commission—or by public administrations, such as in France or Denmark, which are now moving away from Microsoft in the field of office software.
U.S. law (FISA) allows the American government to target individuals outside the United States in order to obtain information with the assistance of electronic service providers. Any European elected official or civil servant could, tomorrow, be subject to such targeting and to the extraction of sensitive data via the tools we use every day, should the U.S. government consider that our work runs counter to Washington's interests. We should also recall the digital sanctions imposed by the U.S. government on a judge of the International Criminal Court whose decisions it opposed.