When actions contradict words: while calls for European digital sovereignty are multiplying, Matignon, contrary to the speeches of President Emmanuel Macron, has entrusted an ultra-sensitive market of "social listening" of the State, the monitoring of social networks, to a Canadian company under American flag... whereas this market was until now in the hands of a French company. Enough to spark an outcry among some members of the political class, but also within the ousted French society, which has filed an administrative appeal.
The affair, reported by La Lettre A on Monday, June 16, has been hotly debated since Sunday, June 15 on social networks, with many denouncing the great gap between official calls for digital sovereignty and actions to the contrary. In a written question addressed to the government, and published on LinkedIn, MP Philippe Latombe (Les Démocrates), specifically alerts the Minister of Digital Affairs, Clara Chappaz, to this issue, which involves highly sensitive ministries and missions.
Since 2017, the French company Visibrain has been providing these monitoring tools
What is it about? In this call for tenders, the service provider's mission is to conduct social media monitoring, ranging from topics of interest to the French government to crisis anticipation and monitoring of non-public crises. Specifically, the company must take the pulse of the French on specific strategic topics. However, this monitoring, if carried out by an American company, could end up on the radar of Washington due to the Cloud Act, the Patriot Act, the FISA Act, and other American extraterritorial laws.
These laws require any American company to communicate information to American authorities, regardless of whether it involves data gleaned in Europe from sensitive state services (armed forces, defense, interior, etc.). To avoid any interference in state affairs, the French administration has issued several doctrines and circulars, which apply in particular when a public entity must choose a cloud or digital solutions provider.
Since 2017, however, the question of this "American right of scrutiny" has not arisen. It was, in fact, a French company founded in 2010, Visibrain, which until recently provided these social media monitoring tools to several state departments, including the Ministries of the Economy, the Interior, the Armed Forces, and Defense. Eight years earlier, the French company had become the "holder of an interministerial monitoring market involving around thirty entities" she explains.
As its contract expires in 2025, Visibrain applied for its own succession during the new call for tenders for the 2025-2029 market, managed by the Government Information Service (SIG), which reports to Matignon. Among the five lots up for grabs, one of them, the most important, consisted of monitoring social networks on current or interesting topics, crises, and societal issues. A market that Visibrain tried to win again... without success.
Technological decline, low price...
Because at the end of the tender process, the market was won by Talkwalker. This company, originally from Luxembourg, was acquired in 2024 by Hootsuite, "a Canadian group controlled by American capital," writes Philippe Latombe, MP for Vendée.
Enough to cause disappointment, then incomprehension ofthe French company ousted. According to one of its co-founders, Nicolas Huguenin, interviewed by 01net.com, Talkwalker would have offered a service excluding TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and Telegram, social networks that are nevertheless essential for any monitoring. This represents a "technological step backward" compared to Visibrain's solutions, which obtained the best technical score, the company director explains to us – during these calls for tenders, the technical and commercial proposals of each candidate are noted and then ranked.
And in this case, it was Talkwalker that obtained the best price ranking: the company would have offered a price three times cheaper than the others, according to the French champion of information monitoring: a "and abnormal" low price which would have allowed it to win the bid, according to the man at the head of Visibrain. "In a market expected to be worth €3.45 billion over four years, (it is estimated that) Talkwalker made an offer of around €800,000," explains the CEO: it was then impossible for all the other candidates to match such prices. Contacted, Talkwalker and its parent company Hootsuite had not responded to our questions at the time of publication of this article.
Were Visibrain's prices too high? "It is often said that sovereignty costs more. But our financial offer is (already) 30% below market expectations," declares Nicolas Huguenin. Faced with this decision, the French companyinitiated an action before the administrative court, raising "various points of irregularities" and requesting "not a cancellation of the contract but a reanalysis of the candidates' offers", its CEO told us. The entrepreneur, who explains that he is supported "by several users (from ministries) who are involved in the market", also denounces "a lack of transparency", as the authorities do not want to share their calculation method (of the candidates' marks) on this file. The judgment, the investigation of which ended on Monday, June 16, is expected to be delivered in the coming days or weeks.
"Viginum will therefore have to use a tool made by the Americans to combat external interference."
For Loïc Kervran, MP for Cher, it is important to understand that we are "in a very strategic market," particularly because of "the clients (the recipients of this monitoring, editor's note) who are the Intelligence Academy, the General Secretariat for Defense and National Security, Viginum," the agency for combating foreign interference and the manipulation of information, as well as the Ministries of the Economy, the Interior, and the Armed Forces.
The missions encompassed by the call for tenders are also very sensitive. "For ministries, it is sometimes a matter of preparing a ministerial trip, or following the unveiling in the public sphere of an affair that is important for the credibility of the State," explains the parliamentarian. And with Talkwalker as the provider of these services, "Viginum will therefore have to use, to fight against external interference, a tool that is made by the Americans. This is extremely strange", declares the Horizons representative, who is waiting for a response from Matignon on this subject. When contacted, the Prime Minister's office had not responded to our request at the time of publication of this article.
"The security issues" are real, confirms Nicolas Huguenin, who tells us that "some of its users, in very sensitive entities (of the State, editor's note), are already telling us that it doesn't matter what is concluded at the public procurement level. They will not be able to sign with a non-European solution." Understand: they will not go through a company under the American flag to monitor key topics on social networks.
"I don't understand why they don't try to protect and defend the only French player who has this technical expertise today."
For the co-founder of the ousted French company, this is an aberrant decision from a security perspective. "All sensitive monitoring, all non-public crises, all subjects of state interest will be available under the American Patriot Act," one of the American extraterritorial laws that allows Washington to access strategic information. This choice also weakens "the only French technical expertise in this area": in a market with few companies, Visibrain stands out as an exception. "I don't understand why they don't try to protect and defend the only French player with this technical expertise today," he laments.
A point also raised by MP Philippe Latombe in his written question: "What concrete measures are being considered to support innovative and strategic French companies like Visibrain, in the context of public procurement?" he wrote to Minister Clara Chappaz. But what particularly annoys elected official Loïc Kervran is the "repetition of these decisions," with French government departments using non-European (and French) companies, namely, he lists: the public procurement platform Place, Polytechnique, the National Education system, and others.
"Is it that financial logic prevails over everything?" he asks. These latest choices for American solutions by French government services, however, came after Donald Trump's return to the White House, he indicates. A return that could have had the role of electroshock – "a wake-up call," explains the Horizons parliamentarian – but which seems to have only awakened words, failing actions.
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