By 2027, the French government will replace all external video conferencing tools with Visio. This is an internally developed and secure alternative to Zoom and Teams, among others. The measure is intended to strengthen the digital sovereignty of public services.
The French government wants to get rid of video platforms such as Teams, Zoom, or Webex. That is why Visio, a solution developed by the government service for digital affairs (DINUM), is being rolled out to all government services. The first institutions to switch completely include the CNRS, the Ministry of Defense, and the Health Insurance service (Assurance Maladie). This switch will take place before the end of the first quarter of 2026.
Too much diversity
According to competent minister David Amiel, the diversity of current solutions is problematic. It makes cooperation between ministries more difficult, entails extra costs, and increases the risk of data leaks.
The French are not so much thinking of cybercriminals, but rather the insecurity associated with using a non-European solution. The most common tools for video meetings are all American, which poses a risk of leaks and surveillance. This certainly plays a role in the current political context.
Visio should bring uniformity and sovereignty. Ultimately, all French civil servants must work with one uniform, secure solution for video meetings. The transition should be completed by 2027.
Completely French
Visio is built on French technology and is hosted at Outscale: a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes that has a SecNumCloud certificate from the French cybersecurity service ANSSI. The platform also includes speech transcription based on AI technology from the French start-up Pyannote. In the summer of 2026, automatic subtitling will be added via software from the French AI lab Kyutai.
The switch also means a financial gain. For every 100,000 users who switch from commercial licenses to Visio, the government says it saves approximately 1 million euros per year.
Currently, 40,000 civil servants already regularly use Visio. The number of active users should increase to 200,000 in the coming months.
We also note that the French government wants to get rid of Teams from Microsoft, but with the name Visio, it is not entirely Microsoft-free. Visio is also the name of a flowchart solution from Redmond.