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bubblicious
darknavi
That's a pretty critical distinction.
makeitdouble
It's an important point, but doesn't remove weight from the decision.
First, Google Docs is out of window either way. Then a specific budget needs to be approved to use Office, which will reduce its use to only people actually needing it (just reading docs produced elsewhere won't be enough)
hinata08
Don't worry about the budget, education is the second most funded government feature in France after healthcare/social security, and before Defence [1] (in French)
(103 billions EUR for education in 2020 by the central government only, 67 for Defence, and surprisingly little resources about how much social security actually costs, on an extensive scale) (local governments allocate more resources, mostly for the maintenance or buildings and supplies)
Teachers have had free licenses for MS Office since forever, even for personal computers) Computers can be pretty new in most schools. But network and host administration is more than patchy in most schools, due to a lack of qualified and dedicated employees, so they're ok with purchasing SW that works out of the box. (We used to maintain the school computers with a small group of students when we were in HS)
Actually, free software advocates have been complaining by the price of MS products, compared to the subventions to make free software.
And anyway, MS Office is the only software consistently used in ANY branch of government. It's a staple. Some Defence ppl have even been complaining that you might not want to run NSA-approved American SW for everything, especially as it often came on Chinese Lenovo HW. (While top government officials reminded that the USA is friendly, and that you can't go to the extent of making chips out of the sand from Brittany, a region with cold beaches in the west of France)
So the budget and the usage for Office already exist, for everyone
[1] https://www.economie.gouv.fr/facileco/comptes-publics/budget...
vkou
> It's an important point, but doesn't remove weight from the decision.
Which FOSS alternatives provide similar functionality to Offices 365/Docs, and don't cost somewhere around ~$10/seat in IT time to set up and administer?
A git repository and an installation of LibreOffice don't meet that bar. Collaborative editing, good-enough default access control and security, and document sharing that doesn't consist of emailing "March Report_Version_6 (Copy 2)--actually final--.doc" around.
dmak
> but doesn't remove weight from the decision.
Why? They can still use it, but under the non-free version which is under the necessary compliance.
undefined
throwawaylinux
> Then a specific budget needs to be approved to use Office, which will reduce its use to only people actually needing it
You have great faith in bureaucracy. The reality is anybody who was using a free version before will probably be given a paid version afterwards, and if not then the cost of administration and the creation of new fiefdoms around this process would be a net burden on efficiency anyway.
jameskraus
I feel like this should be added to the submission title.
1vuio0pswjnm7
(Please correct the following if necessary.)
In 2019, MSFT claimed re: Teams that it was keeping all data in country.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190331102643if_/https://techco...
In 2021, Office365 was banned from all ministries.
https://cloud-computing.developpez.com/actu/318885/La-DINUM-...
makeitdouble
Additional note: there are directives to also stop paid Office 365 [0], especially from the education branch with clear orders coming from the top to stop any new deployment[1]
To the unavoidable question of “what to use then?”, I think the answers are “tough luck” and “the gov has a new service for that”. It’s set a case where GDPR has priority over costs and efficiency.
[0] https://siecledigital.fr/2021/09/24/etat-francais-micorost-3... [1] https://questions.assemblee-nationale.fr/q16/16-971QE.htm
> S'agissant de l'emploi de la solution Microsoft Office 365, le ministère de l'éducation nationale et de la jeunesse a informé en octobre 2021 les recteurs de région académique et d'académie de la doctrine « cloud au centre » (circulaire du Premier ministre précitée), de la position de la Dinum (note du 15 septembre 2021 précitée) et de l'avis de la CNIL sur ce sujet. Le ministère a ainsi demandé d'arrêter tout déploiement ou extension de cette solution ainsi que celle de Google, qui seraient contraires au RGPD.
g42gregory
I think that this move isn't so much about privacy. I think that French government is beginning to realize that these types of products and services constitute critical IT infrastructure for the country. As such, these products can not be offered by a foreign country, no matter how friendly. I suspect the government offices will be next. I am not actually sure, what alternatives are out there for MS Office and Google Docs?
thwayunion
You can still just buy Office and not use the 365 offering [1]. The ban on Office 365 doesn't look like it's relevant to Office 2021.
Aside, both LibreOffice and Apple's office suite are perfectly serviceable for K12 education and most public administration.
[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/what-s-the-differ...
PenguinCoder
> You can still just buy Office and not use the 365 offering
Until MS stops offering that and you're SOL, subscription model only going forward.
smileybarry
That’s been “any day now” for years, but they keep releasing standalone versions. They just keep some (usually server-powered anyway) features exclusive to 365.
trelane
Yeah, but then we can just fork it and, uh. Oops.
throwawaysleep
If a country like France prefers it, it will be built for them.
westcort
Microsoft made by offline office program too slow to use when I updated to 11. It was a shakedown and I am not a happy customer.
JamesianP
I can't read the article (but gazing at the words, I almost feel like I can...) but I'd guess that all of their software needs are covered by other software systems licensed by the govt. And that this ban is more to make people stop using free cloud services instead of them.
codetrotter
> what alternatives are out there for MS Office and Google Docs?
Probably Collabora.
“Collabora Online. Your Private Office Suite In The Cloud”
https://www.collaboraoffice.com/
https://www.collaboraoffice.com/libreoffice-from-collabora-2...
From what I understand, Collabora is LibreOffice in your browser, with cloud functionality
e12e
> From what I understand, Collabora is LibreOffice in your browser
Indeed:
judge2020
Does this include hosted email? https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-online-3/ shows that it has a user directory, but I can't find any direct mention of a web email interface.
jeroenhd
https://www.open-xchange.com/ does email, office, and solves many enterprise management problems already. It can be cloud hosted or deployed online and is mostly open source (https://gitlab.open-xchange.com/frontend, pretty sure they've got everything but the "pro" stuff licensed under GPL). It's based on OpenStack, though, so hobby deployments may pose a challenge.
It's the most complete European office product I've seen so far.
therealmarv
It's an underdog but pretty good. If you want to use something in the cloud which respects privacy more. Does not even need an email for registering and there is a premium plan too.
But I think the more practical solution is LibreOffice/OpenOffice. I think it's encouraged (or even enforced?) to use that office suites for public service/government institutions in France.
GauntletWizard
Cryptpad failed my early example of spreadsheet functionality: I typed in a series of numbers in column B, and typed at the top of the column "=B3:B".
npteljes
There's a website that exist to answer this specific question:
https://european-alternatives.eu/alternative-to/microsoft-of...
Of these alternatives, I'm using Onlyoffice for some years now, specifically their Personal tier, which is free of charge. I think it works well, and it's also clear that they are constantly working on it.
blihp
LibreOffice for a desktop version of office productivity applications... would be more than enough for most users. Not sure what the options are for web-based office applications though.
mickael-kerjean
10 years ago the police stations (the "gendarmerie" to be precise) in France moved away from windows / word to Linux / openoffice. source: my did who is now a retired officer. I remember him asking me some cool tips on Linux so he could show off his colleagues who were lost by the transition.
kakwa_
The Gendarmerie also contributes to OSS quite significantly.
Lemonldap (SSO solution) for example.
AmericanChopper
> As such, these products can not be offered by a foreign country, no matter how friendly.
I think this is a rather naive perspective. I’ve worked in national security jobs, and the idea that services from foreign companies should not be allowed is a completely infeasible dream.
undefined
edgyquant
Just like with Twitter, we need to replace these monolithic services with international standards that any country or business can implement
zahma
Libre Office. Not so sure that it integrates very well with cloud services, though I’ve not tried. It’s a bit of a step back from collaboration on a Google Doc. However, for basic functionality, I’m quite fine with word processing on Libre Office.
judge2020
Microsoft Office isn't banned, just Workspace / M365 / Azure Active Directory as users' IDP.
drpixie
Nice to see someone taking privacy a little more seriously.
The cloud has it's place but I've never been happy with the underhanded way that Office 365 "encourages" users to save to the cloud. When someone pays for one service, and is continuously pushed to use another (with additional downstream costs), I wonder isn't it time to pursue antitrust?
busterarm
France isn't taking privacy seriously. They're the most advanced nation on the planet in terms of industrial espionage.
What they're concerned about is not having their businesses operate at the whims of and be open to disruption by Americans.
I work at a company that has a French government service as a customer. They are super sensitive to their data transiting across US servers but have zero concerns about transit through the rest of Europe...including Europe's "fourteen eyes" nations.
PoignardAzur
> They're the most advanced nation on the planet in terms of industrial espionage.
Citation needed.
(Especially given that the other two contenders are the US and China)
busterarm
https://www.france24.com/en/20110104-france-industrial-espio...
https://www.lawfareblog.com/french-espionage
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wikileaks-france-leads-russia-c...
This is pretty widely known. Especially in the Defense industry and their world class industrial espionage skill goes all the way back to the eighteenth century.
It's not "citation needed", you're just ignorant of history.
Hnrobert42
I have not heard of the U.S. as a contender for industrial espionage. Traditional espionage sure, but not for competitive advantage. Do know of any sources for info about that?
undefined
tzs
> The cloud has it's place but I've never been happy with the underhanded way that Office 365 "encourages" users to save to the cloud.
What does it do?
I use it on my Mac and nearly all my documents are just local, except for a few I've specifically saved to the could so I can easily access them from other devices.
When I make a new document and save it, it defaults to the save it locally dialog. I don't notice any encouragement, let alone underhanded encouragement, to save to the cloud.
It is possible that when I first installed it the default was to give the save online dialog when saving a new document instead of the save local dialog, but it seems to remember which one you last used and give that as the default the next time.
Have I missed some other encouragement to use the cloud?
jeroenhd
My experience on Windows is that it selects your Onedrive account automatically. I've had to change the default because it kept trying to upload my documents.
I've also had several scratch documents appear in a cloud drive at some point, probably through autosaves. Disabling cloud integrations tends to generate nag screens or "helpful" warning toolbars to "restore functionality". Going offline in Office on Windows is a path riddled with deceptive design. This is the education version of Office on Windows 11, though I haven't used or updated it in a while; not that I think Microsoft's data collection team has suddenly had a change of heart.
Non-enterprise versions of the product don't seem to be available without signing in to a Microsoft account at all. You can log yourself out out after activation, but realistically very few people know about that and even then you've already given Windows a hint of a Microsoft account, which it will use to try to sign you into every chance it gets.
Schroedingersat
It defaults to onedrive and buries local storage behind a tiny text button. It brings up a giant popup saying 'you need to upload to edit' if you open a form in read only mode and various other ways.
drpixie
All of the above/below, and many config changes (eg. prefer local storage) seem to be reverted to MS preferred defaults by system upgrades :(
superchroma
its the default option and you have to click more to save to disk
irjustin
I can see government offices, but why schools? The ease of access and productivity hit wouldn't outweigh the benefits imho.
ymolodtsov
Because storing files in the cloud is the most sensible option for most people.
BMc2020
As the ministry explains in its response, in the Dinum circular, it is clearly stated that "the deployment of Office 365 is prohibited in French administrations". The State's interministerial digital director has decided to intervene to protect the "sensitive data" held by several public officials. According to the circular published in 2021, it is written that data should no longer be hosted on Microsoft 365 cloud services, to protect it from a possible security breach or even misuse by US intelligence services.
mavu
Long overdue. Should happen in all European countries.
npteljes
I say. I understand that they are supposedly cutting edge tech, but at the same time, we're hosting intelligence on an another country's soil. Especially now, there are quite a lot of alternatives that we could use, and improve, locally:
nine_k
What is going to be a replacement?
eternalban
It's not a fusion reactor we're talking about here. I'm sure the very smart and capable CS types in INRIA could manage it.
https://www.w3.org/Amaya/ (Started in -1996- "in conjunction with W3C")
Can't find where I read this, but in context of [packet switching] and the French variant, it was claimed Valéry Giscard d'Estaing put an end to the French variant, due to US pressure. (I think it was the Louis Pouzin interview in Oral History.)
France should be kicking ass in software & computing. The mystery is why it isn't competing with Google, Facebook, etc.
[update]
An Interview with Louis Pouzin, conducted by Andrew L. Russell, Paris, France, 2012
---- source: https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/155666/oh... [pp 17-18] ----
But on the other hand, the French délégation à l’informatique were powerful. Fortunately for them, President Pompidou died. And then we had a new president called Giscard d’Estaing. And Giscard d’Estaing was not in the same mentality; Pompidou was still a follower of De Gaulle’s policy. De Gaulle’s policy was to be independent from the American. And CII in building a network was in a way a continuation of the same policy – become independent. But Giscard absolutely had no technology vision. He was interested in politics, but not in technical things. He had advisors who had no technical training. They were people from Ecole nationale d’administration, and people who make rectangles, and put arrows between rectangles, and they think it’s going to work. <laughter> So they dissolved the délégation à l’informatique. Finished. Disbanded. <laughter> And as a result, our funding was cut.
And they also joined together CII and Honeywell-Bull and made CII-Honeywell-Bull, a new company. And this new company which had not much experience in networking, they said they would take our technology and develop it in their own system. The guy who was at that time heading Bull was an engineer. He had been at IBM before, and he was a guy who understood very well strategy and technology. So I think he was pretty convinced that it was a good deal to get what we had developed. But he had been put in place by the technical group, which was also a partner in CII, and this group was Thomson. Thomson was typically a company that was making electro-mechanical devices, but also working for the army, for the military, for the aerospace and so on.
And here you had CG, which was a huge group – all kinds of electrical things – and téléphonie. CG had apparently put a lot of money into supporting Giscard’s election everywhere. You know, the lobbyists finance the elections. And why did they finance the elections? It’s because they didn’t like the government policy with Thomson, because Thomson had decided to go into téléphonie. And that was extremely displeasing for General Electric, for CG, because they were not the monopoly but the dominant provider in France. There were other ones, but they were the big one. And to them, introducing another competitor in téléphonie was not very attractive.
In addition to that, the délégation à l’informatique had put up an industrial group called Unidata. And Unidata was CII, Siemens, Plessey in the U.K., Olivetti in Italy, and Phillips in the Netherlands.
So this Unidata group had a strategy to develop a product series by sharing engineering, sharing development, and having each one a particular specialty. And they had decided, for example, that Siemens... Siemens also was in computing, but they were not very dominant. And so they had decided that Siemens would close down the computing subsidiary they had in France. And on the other hand, the French would close their computing subsidiary in Germany. So each one would have its own clean territory. And that means that for Compagnie générale d’electricité in France that Siemens was becoming a partner of a big French company and, therefore, it certainly would be detrimental to their market for the téléphonie. The delegate from the informatique told me that. They wanted to scatter Thomson’s enterprises in téléphonie, and financing Giscard was probably a way to push them to that direction. And once Giscard was elected, so they disbanded Unidata.
Siemens was furious about that because it was really treason for them. <laughter>
-- end --
Hnrobert42
Why should France be kicking ass at SW dev? The only French SW I considered was Didomi. Their product was alright, but their sales cycle was a pain in the ass.
867-5309
notepad.exe
edit: okay then, Wordpad!
eatonphil
It doesn't seem from this post nor the source text if there is a product they particularly recommend. But I guess from the "cloud at center" issue they would be fine with normal Office (the offline only suite) and LibreOffice/OpenOffice?
kasajian
There is nothing to prevent an organization from deploying office 365, and simply use the desktop apps only, never storing any data off-site. The only difference between that and installing the non-365 version of the office products is that the software updates are more seemless.
lrvick
A malicious software update could still exfiltrate all documents in plaintext.
If you do not trust a third party to store your data, then you cannot trust any of their proprietary binaries to access your data either.
gigel82
So, Microsoft will push an update to extract the data? Did you forget a "/s" tag?
I mean... Windows is also owned by Microsoft, so they should ban all use of Windows. And also ban any binary distribution of software of any kind (yup, all school teachers will build their Linux from source now). Oh wait, a third party is making the firmware in your CPUs, better build those from scratch too... go get your pickaxe - you're going mining. </s>
eikenberry
And they only run on a few operating systems.
robust-cactus
CNIL is a pretty ridiculous organization of buearcrats. They'd rather pummel even a French company to the ground with fines rather than discuss anything. Their policies aren't particularly best practice either - you could build things better than they recommend but if it doesn't meet their requirement they'll annihilate you with fines.
Rexxar
Can you give us at least one example ?
robust-cactus
Look at their password requirements : 1 symbol, 1 uppercase letter, 1 lowercase letter, 1 number - when we know that security folks at this point would say "any easy to remember phrase is better than random characters". And they will fine you to death if you don't enforce all the characters.
There's a few mentions online about companies that have gone out of business or fined like crazy - whether they're warranted or not isn't the question. There's an article on tech crunch about Fidzup that shares a nice extreme case. I don't think 1 nations DPA should be able to unilaterally make decisions for entire platforms or the planet. Moreover, they're absolutely terrible to work with.
Rexxar
I see what you say in old recommendation but a recommendation is just a baseline you can change if you justify it. The new version seems to be in line with what you want : https://www.cnil.fr/sites/default/files/atoms/files/draft_re...
For Fidzup there was no monetary sanction. Investor have just walk away when they learned there was an inquiry.
All sanction are published : https://www.cnil.fr/fr/thematique/cnil/sanctions I don't find anything crazy.
martin_henk
We probably need a new way of handling these dependencies on tech firms. I don't think libre office or any other thing can replace MS Office. There should be another way to deal with it.
cloudking
Zoho has entered the chat.
Seriously though, what are they supposed to use now?
jeroenhd
Microsoft Office, locally, for document editing. For simultaneous cloud editing they'll have to switch to alternatives such as NextCloud, OnlyOffice, Open-Xchange, you name it. Plenty of fish in the sea, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Some scale great for small primary schools, others scale better for high schools and universities.
This entire problem could've been solved years ago when the GDPR grace period started; then when Safe Harbor blew up as expected by just about everyone, they had another chance to start working on a fix. Then the fix should've had priority since Privacy Shield was invalidated, because they have been in violation of the law since.
I'm sure institutions will cry foul and beg the government not to fine them because they could've never seen it coming, because the solution to privacy laws always seems to be "ignore the law and pretend you'll never get caught".
npteljes
ONLYOFFICE can also do collaborative online editing, and sharing, for free (and it's also open source!)
mig39
I guess they could use normal Microsoft Office (not the cloud version).
sontek
I like the genera idea of not using the big companies and forcing them into compliance but if the France government is anything like the USA gov I can't imagine them running a self-hosted solution like NextCloud at the same level of security, compliance, and reliability that are imposed on MS and Google.
undefined
StephenAmar
The article specifically refers to the free edu versions of office and workspace. What about the paid ones?
pcurve
“The CNIL recommends that institutions use collaborative suites offered by service providers exclusively subject to European law and "that host data within the European Union and do not transfer it to the United States". The centrist deputy had asked the Ministry of Pap NDiaye to find out if Microsoft's free offer in schools did not "become a form of dumping and unfair competition".
Sounds like there are multiple angles to this. Privacy. Monopoly. National security. So it’s not just about it being free.
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Just to clarify, they are only banning the usage of the free offerings of Office and Workspace which do not provide the data governance / compliance features. The higher tiers of Workspace/Office provide this functionality.