Sunday, September 9, 2018

French Intelligence Agencies Move To Abandon American Software In Their Networks

French Defense Minister Florence Parly at the Elysee Palace in Paris on July 13, 2017. Christophe Morin/Bloomberg

Stars and Stripes: Macron push to drop CIA code quickens as Trump calls EU foe

Just weeks after Emmanuel Macron took office last year, his team went over the French state's most sensitive activities. What it found provided a wake-up call.

The team learned that the country's intelligence agency – which, among other things, tracks French citizens for homegrown terrorism or anarchist activities – uses software from a CIA-backed startup. Its code is provided by Palantir Technologies Inc., a data-mining company that started out working for the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency.

The use of U.S. technology deep inside the French state isn't unusual, but for the tech-savvy team of the 40-year-old president, it was a sign that the country needs to make technological independence a top priority – a sentiment that's become even more urgent after President Donald Trump called the European Union a "foe."

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WNU Editor: The above author is blaming President Trump for this move by French and some European intelligence agencies to stop using U.S. software in their networks. But this move away from using American products first started after the Snowden revelations on NSA spying of European leaders and civilians became public, and the blowback that it caused.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The rush from America’s warm embrace by Western European nations is countered by the rush for an embrace by the Eastern Europeans. France and Germany want to embrace each other and give a cold shoulder to American arms, technology and software. The Seven Seas states, Greece, Norway, Britain are keeping the American hug if not wanting a tighter one. Couple this with the energy revolution in the Mediterranean basin and the continental USA and interesting alliances are forming. One thing for sure, Turkey is out as a American ally and NATO is powerless with Turkey’s membership.