According to many European media outlets, the French government has just announced its commitment to a business application suite created by the French administration itself. Published as free software, the move aims to avoid dependency on proprietary software from foreign companies and ultimately achieve European digital sovereignty.
To this end, they are utilizing what they call “LaSuite”, a series of highly interesting tools that benefit from French state sponsorship and open-source licenses to provide security and reliability to all users.
The suite includes the following tools:
- TChap: This is not just an “Element client.” It is a full infrastructure based on the Matrix protocol (Synapse). The powerful part here is that they have implemented specific security gateways so that the servers (homeservers) are federated but remain under strict administrative control, enabling end-to-end encryption by default and constant security auditing.
- Visio: A multi-videoconferencing system based on LiveKit (a system similar to Jitsi), modified to allow secure meetings via the French administration’s own accounts.
- Drive: A persistent document management system built with Django and React, oriented toward daily collaboration.
- Docs (The collaborative “Wiki”): Forget about heavy forks. This document tool is a flawless implementation based on BlockNote.js for editing and Yjs (via HocusPocus) for synchronization using CRDTs (Conflict-free Replicated Data Types). This ensures that collaborative editing is fluid and technically much more robust than old lock-based systems.
- France Transfert: An alternative to WeTransfer, designed for the occasional sending of massive files (up to several gigabytes) with expiration dates—a critical feature to avoid clogging state mailboxes.
- Grist (Low-code databases): They have integrated Grist Core. If you’re not familiar with it, think of it as an open-source Airtable. It’s a killer tool for moving away from using Excel as a database, allowing users to create relations, custom views, and widgets visually.
- People (Team Management): An in-house development using Django/React for identity and team management within the suite. It acts as the “glue” that allows permissions to flow seamlessly between apps.
- ProConnect (The State SSO): An identity layer based on market standards (OpenID Connect / SAML) that provides single sign-on for the entire suite and other state services, eliminating password silos.
- Cunningham: They have even created their own Design System in TypeScript to ensure a consistent UX across the entire ecosystem.
The full suite is published here: https://github.com/suitenumerique. It is a great collection of super interesting tools to achieve independence from software that, in a given moment, could block the proper functioning of a company or a state in case of conflict or pressure due to “misunderstandings.”
The French government is not alone in these moves toward European digital sovereignty. The German government also took significant steps a few months ago by migrating their Microsoft and Outlook-based mail servers to Open Xchange and Mozilla Thunderbird. Even earlier (in 2024), they phased out Microsoft Office 365 in favor of LibreOffice. To someone unfamiliar with free software, this might seem like a step backward, but when you work with free software daily, you realize that LibreOffice offers the “freedom” that Microsoft software gradually reduces with every new version to force other systems into their ecosystem.
Without a doubt, free software provides the sovereignty needed to avoid third-party dependency, and if European countries are realizing this, it is always a good option.
What I like most about this movement is that they aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel from scratch. They are taking top-tier “bricks” (LiveKit, Matrix, Yjs, Django) and assembling them for professional use. France and Germany (which also collaborates on Docs development via ZenDiS) have understood that sovereignty isn’t bought; it’s compiled. Seeing them use MIT licenses gives me a bit of (healthy) envy, as it allows any company or local administration to deploy this tomorrow.
We are still paying for Office 365 licenses while our neighbors are building the future of the European digital workplace. Don’t you think it’s time for our administrations to stop being mere customers and start being contributors?