POLYTECHNIQUE
OPEN SOURCE
SOVEREIGNTY
École polytechnique and Microsoft 365: digital sovereignty, a collective fight
Without action by CNLL or the internal revolt of its researchers, École polytechnique would now be running on Microsoft 365. That is digital sovereignty in practice: a collective fight.
In 2025, École polytechnique tried to migrate its entire ecosystem to Microsoft 365. A project presented as a more modern step forward. Fair enough.
Except that Article L123-4-1 of the French Education Code requires priority to be given to open-source software in higher education, and Microsoft 365 de facto exposes data to US jurisdiction (Cloud Act, FISA), which is a problem for sensitive research data.
CNLL (the French National Open Source Software Council) threatened legal action. MP Philippe Latombe tabled a written question highlighting the project’s contradictions with current law. Staff and researchers also voiced their opposition internally. The press picked it up.
As a result, École polytechnique officially suspended its project. Without this mobilisation at every level (legal, political, internal), the project would have gone ahead.
In silence, the switch happens without friction: that is what is happening today in dozens of institutions.
École polytechnique made the subject visible and legitimate.
Just like the city of Lyon, which has migrated 80% of its office software to open-source solutions.
And the figures speak for themselves:
These examples show how digital sovereignty is built step by step.
The École polytechnique case shows that an institution can give up its sovereignty out of convenience, without bad intentions. And that it can be stopped if enough players get involved.
This news was first published on LinkedIn. To comment or share it, head to the original post. → See the post