Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is far less vocal about his worldviews than Palantir’s Alex Karp. And yet, France is taking steps to reduce its reliance on Windows, while its domestic intelligence agency recently renewed its contract with the increasingly controversial data analytics company.

This paradox is representative of Europe’s messy breakup with U.S. tech. After painful realizations that it comes with strings attached, governments across the region are looking to rely less on American providers. But the steps taken so far have been uneven and often reactive.

The CLOUD Act changed the equation

One change Europe is reacting to dates back to the first Trump presidency. Enacted in 2018, the CLOUD Act forces U.S.-based tech companies to comply with law enforcement requests for data even if the information is stored abroad. This means that even servers located on European soil are no longer enough reassurance when critical data is concerned.

Of all the information that governments sit on, health data is arguably among the most sensitive. Still, the CLOUD Act’s extraterritorial reach didn’t stop the U.K. from striking deals with the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Palantir around data from its National Health Service (NHS) during the pandemic. But if critics have their way, it may end up following France’s lead.

One year ago, the French government announced that its Health Data Hub would be leaving Microsoft Azure in favor of a “sovereign cloud.” This contract has now been awarded to Scaleway, a French cloud provider with a rapidly expanding network of data centers across Europe.

A subsidiary of French group iliad, Scaleway was also one of four providers that won a €180 million sovereign cloud tender from the European Commission (approximately $211 million). AWS European Sovereign Cloud, which Amazon launched to address Europe’s concerns, is not on the list. However, some worry that the U.S. may still have a backdoor due to one winner using S3NS, a “trusted cloud” joint venture between Thales and Google Cloud.

Europe’s alternatives still face steep odds

It wouldn’t be the first time that solutions championed as alternatives to Big Tech face issues caused by their underlying dependencies. Qwant, for instance, was once recommended as the default search engine for public servants in France while relying on Microsoft’s Bing — a partnership that went sour when the French company accused the U.S. giant of abusing its position. The relevant watchdog declined to take action, but Qwant had already made its own move.

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Joining forces with German nonprofit Ecosia, Qwant launched Staan, a Europe-based and privacy-focused search index that could help search engines like theirs reduce their dependency on Google and Bing. But both partners still lag far behind their U.S. rivals in notoriety and reach — even the slightly more popular Ecosia has only about 20 million users, not billions.

Capturing market share is arguably the main issue facing companies challenging U.S. giants — but public contracts could give them a leg up. For instance, the European Commission’s tender will also benefit French cloud providers Clever Cloud and OVHCloud, as well as STACKIT, which Lidl’s parent company Schwarz Group created for its own needs but now commercializes.

The perspective of winning large contracts with European institutions could encourage other players to follow the footsteps of Germany’s retail heavyweight, or at least, that’s the hope. According to its promoters, “an additional goal of the tender was to encourage the market to offer sovereign digital solutions that comply with EU laws and values.”

However, the Commission’s choice to avoid overreliance on a single provider could be a double-edged sword. On one end, diversification could provide more resilience and soothe dependence concerns. On the other hand, it won’t be the best shortcut to fostering Europe’s next trillion-dollar company.

To cynics and pragmatists, sovereign tech may look business-motivated — a way to ensure that euros stay home. But Europe’s conscious uncoupling from U.S. tech hasn’t always translated into contracts for its startups. For instance, France is ditching Windows for the open s

What’s behind Europe’s efforts to ditch US software in favor of sovereign tech