France Says No To Office 365 and Google Workspace in School

The French minister of national education and youth has said that free versions of Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workplace should not be used in schools -- a position that reflects ongoing European concerns about cloud data sovereignty, competition, and privacy rules. From a report: In August, Philippe Latombe, a member of the French National Assembly, advised Pap Ndiaye, the minister of national education, that the free version of Microsoft Office 365, while appealing, amounts to a form of illegal dumping. He asked the education minister what he intends to do, given the data sovereignty issues involved with storing personal data in an American cloud service. Last week, the Ministry of National Education published a written reply to confirm that French public procurement contracts require "consideration" -- payment. "Free service offers are therefore, in principle, excluded from the scope of public procurement," the Ministry statement says, and minister Ndiaye has reportedly confirmed this position. This applies to other free offerings like Google Workspace for Education. Paid versions of these cloud services might be an option if they hadn't already been disallowed based on worries about data safety.

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