France to ditch Palantir’s AI data tools in favour of domestic provider

France’s domestic intelligence service is to ditch AI data tools from the US tech company Palantir in favour of a domestic provider in an effort to avoid “strategic dependency”, the prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has said.“We must use our own AI models; we cannot accept new strategic dependencies in ‌the digital sphere,” Lecornu posted on social media. “We cannot rely on tools developed by foreign powers. France must have its own tools.”There is increasing concern among European governments at their reliance on US-controlled technologies. Washington decided last week to restrict foreign nationals’ access to Anthropic’s latest AI model.Lecornu’s office said the French DGSI intelligence agency would replace Palantir’s tools with those from the French firm ChapsVision, although since the US company’s long-term contract was renewed in 2025, the process is likely to take several years.France must “build real autonomy” and “not depend on the goodwill of certain partners, who are capable of turning off the access tap” for Artificial Intelligence, the prime minister said.ChapsVision, which was founded in 2019 and made €200m (£173m) in revenue in 2025 against Palantir’s $4.5bn (£3.3bn), said it would become the “technological foundation” for “many public agencies for their critical data processing needs”.ChapsVision’s technology, which collects, prepares and analyses data, has reportedly also been selected by Germany’s BfV internal security service. Palantir said it would “continue to support the French government wherever its solutions are needed”.Co-founded by the rightwing billionaire Peter Thiel, an ally of Donald Trump, Palantir has worked with the US government to supply software to ICE, which is carrying out an immigration crackdown, and to identify targets in the US-Israel war on Iran.Campaign groups have long warned that the US company’s products pose risks relating to surveillance, infringements on individual freedoms and data protection. Palantir insists it simply provides powerful data-processing services.Germany’s military has said it will no longer use the company’s products, while Britain is reviewing the National Health Service’s £330m data contract with Palantir after political and parliamentary pressure.The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has also blocked a proposed £50m Palantir ​contract with the capital’s ​Metropolitan police on value-for-money and procurement grounds. ​Palantir has threatened legal proceedings in response.Lecornu said on Tuesday that France planned to invest €655m ​in Artificial Intelligence and set up ​a shared chatbot for ​all state services. It will also create a public health chatbot for the state-owned health insurance agency Ameli.The money would fund “infrastructure, computing capacity, research, companies and industrial sectors”, he said.France had begun rolling out a government AI tool offering a chatbot to 1 million of its 2.6 million civil servants. Built on models from the French startup Mistral AI, the system is intended to help in instances such as speeding up legal cases or helping researchers secure grants, with ministers eager to crack down on the security risk posed by commercial AI tools.Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report