France ends contract with US tech giant

As part of a European push to curb reliance on United States technology companies, France's domestic intelligence service has dropped US giant Palantir in favor of French rival ChapsVision, said France's Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu on Tuesday.

The agency, the General Directorate for Internal Security, or DGSI, had worked with Palantir since 2016 and renewed the contract "temporarily" in December 2025, with the term set to run through 2028.

Lecornu described the switch to ChapsVision as part of a drive to bolster European technology sovereignty.

"We must build our own strategic autonomy," Lecornu said in a social media post. "In the same way that we would not transfer the national archives to California, we need to develop our own AI tools."

The prime minister said France must "not depend on the goodwill of certain partners, who are capable of turning off the access tap" for artificial intelligence.

European governments have become increasingly uneasy about their reliance on US-controlled technologies.

Concerns flared last week, after the US government instructed US technology company Anthropic to restrict foreign nationals' access to its AI models, citing national-security risks.

"We cannot accept new strategic dependencies in ‌the digital sphere," Lecornu added in his social media post. "We cannot rely on tools developed by foreign powers."

Lecornu also announced an additional 655 million euros ($759 million) investment in AI through 2030, and said government workers will get an AI assistant powered by French startup Mistral.

Palantir has come under fire in Europe for its tight links to the US government, as the European Union moves to reduce dependence on US technology in areas including cloud services, AI, social media, and public-sector software services.

Founded in 2019, ChapsVision reported revenue of $232 million in 2025, compared with Palantir's $4.5 billion, according to Agence France-Presse.

ChapsVision will now become the "technological foundation" for "many public agencies for their critical data processing needs", the company said in a statement.

Its platform, which ingests, prepares, and analyzes data, has reportedly also been chosen by Germany's BfV domestic security service.

Lecornu's office said it will take one to three years to deploy the new ChapsVision system and train employees to use it.

Palantir said in a statement its contract with the DGSI remains in force and "would run several additional years". It said it will "continue to support the French government wherever its solutions are needed".

Campaign groups say the US company's tools enable surveillance and threaten civil liberties and data protection, though Palantir maintains it only supplies powerful analytics, The Guardian newspaper noted.

Germany's military plans to stop using Palantir's software, and the United Kingdom is reconsidering a National Health Service deal with Palantir amid political pressure.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan also blocked a Metropolitan Police contract with Palantir on value-for-money grounds, prompting the US company to threaten legal action.

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