France and Germany demand EU digital sovereignty at VivaTech

France and Germany Call for European AI Sovereignty at VivaTech

The opening day of VivaTech 2026 in Paris on Wednesday brought a pointed political message alongside the startup demos and keynote speeches: Europe must stop talking about digital sovereignty and start building it. France and Germany’s digital ministers used the occasion to issue a joint declaration defining digital sovereignty and announcing concrete steps to reduce the continent’s dependence on American technology — a push given fresh urgency by the U.S. government’s abrupt export ban on Anthropic’s most advanced AI models just days earlier.

A Ban That Sharpened the Debate

On the night of June 12, the U.S. Commerce Department ordered Anthropic to disable access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for all foreign nationals worldwide, including those working inside the United States. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick communicated the directive in a letter to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, citing national security concerns. The models, unveiled just three days prior, were immediately taken offline globally. The move sent shockwaves through European governments and companies that had begun integrating the tools, reinforcing longstanding fears about reliance on foreign digital infrastructure.forbes

A Joint Framework and a New Forum

German Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger and French Digital Minister Anne Le Hénanff released a joint paper on Wednesday defining digital sovereignty across six dimensions — from legal enforceability and data protection to infrastructure resilience and economic value creation. “Strengthening our digital sovereignty and reducing technological dependencies is the geopolitical imperative of the hour,” Wildberger said. Le Hénanff called the Franco-German cooperation “decisive for advancing Europe in digitalization and artificial intelligence”.bund

The two countries also announced the relaunch of the “Franco-German Forum for the Future,” a platform to coordinate private and public technology efforts, build a shared catalog of sovereign digital alternatives, and develop a common framework for evaluating Europe’s critical digital dependencies. The initiative is aimed at Brussels and fellow EU member states, with both ministers seeking to embed sovereignty criteria in upcoming legislation including the EU’s Tech Sovereignty Package.rfi

France Moves Against Palantir

In a parallel move underlining the shift from rhetoric to procurement policy, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced Tuesday that domestic firm ChapsVision had been selected by the DGSI intelligence agency to replace Palantir Technologies ↘1.65%. Lecornu pitched the decision as an effort to “build real autonomy” and avoid dependencies on partners capable of cutting access to AI tools. Palantir responded that its contract “remains entirely active,” and Lecornu’s office clarified that the American firm’s tools would remain in use during a multi-year transition to prevent any capability gap.reuters