France drops Palantir after US AI ban, citing digital sovereignty

France Replaces Palantir With Homegrown Tech, Rolls Out Mistral AI Chatbot for Civil Servants

France’s domestic intelligence agency DGSI will terminate its contract with U.S. data analytics firm Palantir and shift to French company ChapsVision, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced on Tuesday, part of a sweeping push to assert digital sovereignty as Paris pledges 655 million euros in new AI investment through 2030.intelligenceonline

“We cannot accept new strategic dependencies in the digital domain,” Lecornu said in a video posted on social media, adding that France must “not depend on the goodwill of certain partners who are capable of turning off the access tap” for AI technologies.infobae

Sovereign AI for Public Services

Alongside the intelligence overhaul, the government announced it will deploy a sovereign AI chatbot — powered by Mistral AI models — to approximately one million state employees. The tool, described by Minister of Public Action David Amiel as “the equivalent of ChatGPT but in a sovereign and secure version,” will assist civil servants with document research, summaries, and analysis.ouest-france

The chatbot was tested over eight months by 10,000 agents across eight ministries, an experiment launched in October 2025 by France’s digital directorate DINUM using Mistral’s Medium 3 model hosted on French infrastructure certified under the SecNumCloud standard. The full rollout is estimated to cost around 700,000 euros.lefigaro

Breaking From Palantir

The DGSI’s relationship with Palantir dates to 2016, when the agency first contracted the U.S. firm — co-founded by Peter Thiel — for counterterrorism data analysis. A tender for a French replacement was launched in 2022 under the codename OTDH, with ChapsVision among the finalists. The transition is expected to take at least two years, with ChapsVision’s data fusion software installed gradually.strategic-culture

The decision comes days after Washington restricted overseas access to Anthropic’s Fable AI model, an episode Lecornu cited as evidence of the risks of technological dependence on the United States.france24

Mistral Eyes Ukraine’s Battlefield Data

Separately, Intelligence Online reported that Mistral AI is seeking access to Ukraine’s DELTA combat data ecosystem, a move Palantir is watching closely. Ukraine’s DELTA system — a battlefield management platform with over 200,000 users — collects millions of annotated frames from combat drone sorties and has been opened to international partners for AI training since March 2026. Mistral already has a partnership with European defense firm Helsing to develop military AI systems, and secured a framework agreement with the French Ministry of Defense in January 2026.militaeraktuell