A Major Shift in Europe’s Digital Strategy
Europe’s push toward digital independence has reached a major milestone after France confirmed it is moving its national Health Data Hub away from Microsoft Azure and onto a domestic cloud provider, Scaleway.
The decision has been widely reported by Reuters, Euronews, and cybersecurity outlets, all confirming the transition as part of a broader European effort to strengthen data sovereignty and reduce reliance on US-based technology firms.
Scaleway, a subsidiary of French telecom group Iliad, will now host one of Europe’s most sensitive public datasets: the health records of millions of citizens.
France originally selected Microsoft in 2019 to host the Health Data Hub, a centralised system designed to support medical research and public health analysis.
However, the arrangement quickly became controversial due to concerns that US law, particularly the Cloud Act, could allow foreign access to European data even when stored in Europe.
France’s data protection authority and cybersecurity agencies repeatedly raised concerns about sovereignty and legal exposure, prompting legal and political pressure for a change.
A new legal framework introduced in 2024 further strengthened these concerns by requiring sensitive national data to be hosted on “sovereign-guaranteed” infrastructure.
Scaleway was chosen after a rigorous evaluation process involving more than 350 technical and security criteria, including resilience, scalability, and compliance with French cybersecurity standards.
The platform will eventually host a copy of France’s National Health Data System (SNDS), which is used for research, epidemiology, and healthcare planning.
The migration is expected to be completed between late 2026 and early 2027.
France’s move is not isolated. Across Europe, governments are increasingly reducing dependence on US hyperscale cloud providers:
- Germany has begun migrating thousands of government systems away from Microsoft
- Denmark is shifting public institutions toward open-source alternatives
- The European Commission has awarded major cloud contracts to European providers, including Scaleway and OVHcloud
Together, these moves reflect a coordinated effort to build a more independent European digital infrastructure.
The decision also comes amid rising global cyber risk. Recent international advisories have warned that critical infrastructure and sensitive data systems are increasingly targeted by sophisticated cyber operations, reinforcing the importance of controlled, locally governed infrastructure.
For European policymakers, the shift is therefore not only about privacy, but also about national resilience.
Experts say the move signals a broader transformation in how Europe approaches technology governance:
- Data is now treated as a strategic national asset
- Cloud infrastructure is increasingly viewed through a security lens
- Dependence on foreign tech providers is being actively reduced
This marks a shift from convenience-driven digital infrastructure to sovereignty-driven architecture.
France’s decision to replace Microsoft with Scaleway is being seen as one of the clearest examples yet of Europe’s push for digital independence.
While the transition will take time to fully implement, the direction is now clear:
Europe is moving toward greater control over its own data, infrastructure, and digital future.
