Martial speeches are linked on sovereignty in the digital domain. Peter Altmaier, Minister
German Economy, launched the Gaia-X project on October 29, presented as a step towards the creation
of a "sovereign cloud". He follows in the footsteps of Angela Merkel, who declared: "Europe needs its
own cloud. »
Digital is a revolution of such magnitude that no one can seriously dispute that the
public authorities have an essential role to play. In this regard, the rapid mobilization of governments and
central banks against the Libra currency project is to be welcomed. Likewise, the development of
the digital economy raises many questions in terms of essential infrastructure or security, which
legitimize public intervention.
However, wanting at all costs to make digital an object of sovereignty confronts a series of risks and
difficulties that public authorities, concerned about communication, seem to underestimate.
First, it is the most obvious, the return of bad interventionism. The risk is particularly great
in the name of legitimate objectives, that digital sovereignty paves the way for bad Colbertism, which has cost
so expensive with such poor results. Evoking, like a catchphrase, the creation of a "digital Airbus"
(in AI, the cloud, etc.), thus forgetting the specificities of the aeronautical sector, is to miss out on a
part of the subject. Because the Gafam were not born from an office in Washington. They are born from an ecosystem
combining academic research, entrepreneurship, and the ability of the financial system to take risks and
support their development. This is Europe's essential backwardness.
Then a technical risk: trying to go at a forced march towards digital sovereignty is
ignore the de facto ubiquity of the digital. Whether we like it or not, as an analysis pointed out
latest from PwC, Microsoft Office is used by more than 96% of the German civil service! Of the same
way, the Gaia-X project mentioned is, as it stands, unachievable without the support of the meganetwork of servers of
Microsoft and Amazon.
There is also a risk of inconsistency on the part of public authorities in the use of the tools they
have. The example of European competition law is quite emblematic. Governments
French and Germans have thus harshly criticized European competition law, when,
on its basis, the European Commission banned the Alstom-Siemens merger in February 2019. These
governments cannot, conversely, congratulate themselves on the fact that the same services are carrying out an offensive
continues against the Gafam with all the weapons of competition law (State aid, abuse of position
dominant), without avoiding falling into the "double standard" that President Obama himself
already denounced, with unusually harsh words, in February 2015.
To straddle the horse of sovereignty is to fail to understand that digital, by nature, is fluid and
decentralized, as evidenced by the acronym “www” (world wide web). The real power, in the digital,
largely belongs to the consumer. In this regard, Facebook probably has more to lose if the
American youth turn away from him only from the billhook action of regulators. Likewise, large
digital companies, today American, tomorrow European or Chinese, cannot
make it possible to alienate some 500 million European consumers.

Ultimately, to think “sovereignty” is to think “borders”. But where to place them? Between Europe and the rest
of the world ? Between Europe and the United States, which share the same democratic values and respect
of individual freedom, on the one hand, and the rest of a world, on the other? Insidiously, it is also to open the
Pandora's box of intra-European borders at a time when the European spirit has never been weaker
in the European Union.