French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said that the government is moving ahead with a project supporting a sovereign cloud handling sensitive data from strategic sectors. The minister had talked about the project earlier this year, and has now revealed that two French-based companies, Dassault Systemes and OVH, have been asked to develop the plan further.
Speaking at a conference, Le Maire said that the first results of this work are expected by December. As reported by Reuters, he also disclosed that the project would initially be done at the Franco-German level, and later possibly at European level. The development of a sovereign cloud has become more relevant following the approval of the Cloud Act by the US administration in 2018.
A previous French government had supported a similar sovereign cloud project by backing the creation of the Cloudwatt venture in 2012. The cloud platform was jointly funded by Orange, Thales and state-owned bank CDC (Caisse des Depots), until Orange agreed to buy out the stakes of its partners in 2015. Following disappointing results, Cloudwatt is now scheduled to close permanently in January 2020.
