Digital sovereignty in France : a binary debate far from the political objectives
Main-author / Auteur principal : Alix DESFORGES, Geode - Université Paris 8, alix.desforges@gmail.com
Co-author(s) / Co-auteur(s) :
Political Geographies Of Data
Communication Orale
Digital sovereignty in France has been discussed since 2006 in the political sphere. The term has been employed to cover very different meanings through the past ten years, depending on the type of actor who uses it. It thus raised a lot of debates on the meaning of the concept, its contours and its implementation. The french narratives reveal a desire for emancipation from US (and Chinese) companies, both at the national and European levels. .
Accordingly, digital sovereignty narratives became an argument to justify technological and industrial development by French or European companies. But it often boils down to a black and white debate with very little nuances i.e. opposing national and foreign companies. The binary debate has influenced industrial policies which were at first conceived according the national versus foreign pattern. But the outcomes were quite a failure because long term political objectives do not match today’s operational and technical needs. Furthermore, they failed to adapt to the fast evolution of technology and of the uses at short term perspectives.
My contribution to the panel aims at showing that the debate on digital sovereignty in France does not match the complex and fluid reality of the digital world and thus does not allow to discuss a realistic and ambitious strategy. I will finally discuss how political narratives adjust to this tension with the short term needs particularly using the concept of strategic autonomy.
Mots clés :
Digital sovereigty, France, discourses
Références :
BELLANGER, P. (2014): La souveraineté numérique. (Paris: Stock).
GANASCIA, JG. Et al. (2018): La souveraineté à l’ère du numérique. Rester maîtres de nos choix et de nos valeurs. CERNA.
LAMBACH, D. (2020): The Territorialization of Cyberspace. In: International Studies Review 22(3), 482–506.
POHLE, J. & THIEL, Th. (2020): "Digital Sovereignty". In: Internet Policy Review - Journal on Internet Regulation (9): 1-19
CATTARUZZA A. (2019): Géopolitique des données numériques (Paris: Le Cavalier Bleu).