France abandons Microsoft Windows and switches to Linux

The French government has decided to switch from Windows to Linux on some computers in public institutions and is taking the first step through the state’s digital unit, DINUM. April 8, 2026 The official statement describes this move as part of France’s strategy to reduce its non-European digital dependencies. The government is not satisfied with the desktop operating system, it also wants a new road map for collaboration tools, antivirus, artificial intelligence platforms, databases, virtualization and network equipment. To be honest, we see here that it is not just a software choice, but the state’s intention to re-establish the technology supply chain.

French Minister of Public Action and Accounts, David Amiel, says that the state can no longer tie its data, infrastructure and strategic decisions to solutions whose rules it does not determine. The official text makes it clear that France wants to re-establish control over its “digital destiny.” However, the government has not yet announced which Linux distribution it will choose and the exact timetable for the entire transition. Despite this, we can easily say that DINUM has decided to move away from Windows on its own workstations and that this work has gone beyond the trial phase and turned into a corporate program.

This decision does not come alone. France on the public side in January Microsoft Teams And Zoom instead of native and open source based Visio announced that it would expand its platform. The target is this system 2027 To carry it to all government units by . In addition, the French health insurance institution CNAM 80 thousand is migrating its employees to common government digital tools such as Tchap, Visio and FranceTransfert. Another statement made last month was that the health data platform by the end of 2026 It showed that it would move to a “reliable” new solution. In fact, France treats the Windows decision not as a separate file, but as a broad transformation program that brings together cloud, communication and data sovereignty on the same line.

The European dimension of the matter is at least as important as France. European Parliament, January 22, 2026 In the decision adopted on , it asked the European Commission to identify critical external dependencies in digital infrastructure and technologies and develop measures to reduce them. Storage services, communication platforms, software layer and the standards that support them stand out in the decision. On the other hand, France’s new program, every ministry until autumn 2026 requires it to prepare its own addiction reduction plan. In this context, new industrial meetings will be held in June, which will bring together public and private sector players. In other words, the Paris administration does not leave this job only with political discourse, but also establishes the supply and implementation phase.

Why the Linux decision isn’t just an operating system change

If you read this news only as “Windows is leaving, Linux is coming”, you may miss the big picture. Because public institutions in Europe now make technology choices based on geopolitical risk, data control, supply assurance and vendor lock-in rather than cost or license calculations. In the examples we have seen over the years, the open source side offers the advantage of customization and auditability, especially in large public structures. However, it also leaves difficult topics such as driver compatibility, in-house software transformation and user habits on the table. The step taken by France will not switch the whole of Europe to Linux on the same day tomorrow, but it clearly shows that the period of automatic dependence on American companies in public technologies is seriously questioned. Microsoft did not comment on this development in its statement to TechCrunch, which suggests that the discussion will continue to grow for a while.