» In France, it is impossible for a tech entrepreneur like me to join the army. Thus, not only does the military not play the role of a technology accelerator and the main financier serving its own country’s enterprises, as in the United States, but it even gives an advantage to foreign competitors. ”
To understand the importance that GAFAMs have taken on in our daily lives, you just have to imagine a world where they don’t exist… What would we do without Google to find information, write an email or navigate with GPS? without Amazon to get the package to our mailbox, without Facebook/WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends, without an iPhone to take photos, without Microsoft Office to work? Of course, thirty years ago, our parents were doing very well without the tools used by these companies. But we…?!
First of all, I consider it important to insist on the fact that GAFAM, in spite of all the legitimate criticisms we can make of them (monopoly situation, tax evasion, democratic risk, environmental restrictions) has changed our lives! Google has given us access to a global encyclopedia; Apple created the touch screen, the mobile internet and the consumer computer; Facebook brought people together (at least initially) by allowing them to communicate from one end of the world to the other; Amazon industrialized e-commerce; Microsoft has made it possible for all of us to browse the Internet on a computer screen and use Word, Excel and PowerPoint programs. These companies have created high-performance technologies that are also hyper-available and almost childishly easy to use. They owe their incredible success to their speed of response and ability to sense the wants and needs of consumers. They offer not only a product, but an ecosystem of innovative solutions. They are both competitive and complementary: did you know that in 1997, Microsoft invested 150 million dollars in Apple, which at the time had significant financial problems? Last year, Google paid nearly $18 billion to be the iPhone’s search engine, and Apple’s cloud data is partly hosted on Amazon’s servers.
Army: an investment fund that does not tell its name
I believe that one of the reasons for their success lies in the enormous financial support of the American state, and especially the American army. Many people in France are not aware of this, but the Ministry of Defense there has a research agency called DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency), which funds research in advance and billions of dollars for revolutionary innovations. Without it, there would be no SpaceX project, no Internet or GPS. It’s a bit like an American mutual fund that doesn’t want to say its name. In France, too, the Ministry of Armed Forces invests in technology, but on a much smaller scale. When DARPA announced an investment of 2 billion dollars in artificial intelligence in 2018, the French army announced 100 million, or twenty times less…
Ahead of the European elections, why is no candidate campaigning for the creation of a European GAFAM? For example by creating the European DARPA? In France, it is impossible for a tech entrepreneur like me to join the army. Thus, not only does the military not play the role of a technology accelerator and the main financier serving the business of its country, as in the United States, but it even gives an advantage to foreign competitors. Example: most of the drones that the police are now using during demonstrations are Chinese. However, several innovative French companies with recognized expertise in the field responded to Beauvau’s invitation in 2020 to procure more than 600 drones. But since they were a bit more expensive, they were rejected. And the French authorities preferred to entrust the Chinese company DJI, already accused of espionage in Europe, to film us. We walk on our heads…
Living without Google?
That said, it’s not about being a smug GAFAM fan, because their omnipotence still requires supervision. This already presents real problems of digital sovereignty. This concept seems distant, but it is very concrete: it refers to the ability of a country to own or not own the digital data of its citizens or its companies. Today, all these data are controlled by American giants. We Europeans do not have our own free will in the management and processing of our data, we are tied hand and foot to foreign actors. However, a company using Google Drive gives Google access to its contracts, its customers, its activities. If an American competitor wants to buy it tomorrow, it can rely on this information. The Russians have their web, the Chinese too, the Americans obviously, but not us Europeans.
Worse, the scenario of France one day being cut off from the global internet is not surreal. Some would say that it is completely impossible that the United States, our historical ally, could do this to us? It is not so certain if we remember the very harsh words of Donald Trump who explained that a country that does not respect its financial participation in NATO cannot benefit from the protection of its partners…
Therefore, the sword of Damocles hangs over us. Then it is impossible to work or live without Google or Gmail. As economist Jacques Attali says, “a good rule of thumb is not to depend on more than 20% of any one supplier for anything.” We are very far from that because 92% of our European data is in the United States.
We Europeans must therefore take back control of our data. This is a key question, in my opinion insufficiently addressed in the French and European political debate.