Digital sovereignty is neither a pursuit of self-sufficiency nor a simple political statement. It concerns organisations’ ability to identify critical dependencies, preserve their freedom to decide and build credible alternatives at European scale.
Three institutional partners of the Salon Souveraineté Numérique share their perspectives on these challenges and the associated operational levers.
Digital sovereignty encompasses highly diverse industrial, regulatory and operational realities. To reflect this complexity, the Salon Souveraineté Numérique 2026 structured its conference programme around eight thematic tracks covering the entire value chain, from infrastructure geopolitics to funding models for European alternatives.
Eight tracks to structure the debate
TRACK 1 — GEOPOLITICS, STRATEGIC AUTONOMY & RESILIENCE
TRACK 2 — EUROPEAN REGULATION & OPERATIONAL IMPACT
TRACK 3 — INFRASTRUCTURE & TRUSTED CLOUD
TRACK 4 — IDENTITY, DATA & TRUST SERVICES
TRACK 5 — TRUSTWORTHY, SECURE & OPERATIONAL AI
TRACK 6 — OPEN SOURCE, DIGITAL COMMONS & ALTERNATIVES
TRACK 7 — PUBLIC SECTOR, LOCAL AUTHORITIES & PUBLIC PROCUREMENT
TRACK 8 — ECOSYSTEMS, STARTUPS & FUNDING
To shed light on these different perspectives, we spoke to three institutional partners of the event: Caroline Chopinaud, Managing Director of Hub France IA; Bernard Bailet, President of the Fédération nationale des Tiers de Confiance (FnTC); and Philippe Luce, General Delegate of Infralliance. All three stress the multidimensional nature of digital sovereignty, combining political ambition, industrial capabilities and organisations’ practical ability to make choices. Their analyses converge on one point: the challenge is no longer to pursue total sovereignty, but to reduce critical dependencies and secure the building blocks considered essential to European autonomy.
Digital sovereignty as the practical ability to make choices
For Bernard Bailet, digital sovereignty has three inseparable dimensions. ‘It involves a political ambition that sets a direction, industrial capabilities that make that direction achievable, and above all effective freedom of choice for organisations. This last dimension is central, because many public and private players are now in situations of technical dependency that prevent them from changing provider without major risk, particularly regarding data, electronic evidence or business continuity,’ he says.
Caroline Chopinaud agrees, adding that digital sovereignty is defined above all by the ability to choose. It means being able to select which solutions to deploy and change provider without disruption or excessive dependency. This is a strategic approach enabling organisations to retain control of their technology decisions rather than submitting to choices imposed by technical or contractual constraints. ‘Today, being 100% sovereign in digital technology is extremely difficult, if not impossible. The issue therefore shifts to the political and economic sphere. It involves giving organisations the means to identify European alternatives and incorporate a structured analysis of their technological dependencies into their digitalisation strategy, in which AI plays a growing role. This reflection is becoming decisive in preserving freedom of decision over the medium and long term,’ she explains.
Philippe Luce points out that Europe and France know how to achieve sovereignty in some major industrial infrastructure sectors, such as rail, aerospace, defence and certain space segments. ‘Digital technology, however, and particularly cloud and upper software layers, remains characterised by massive dependencies on non-European players. In this context, the priority is to measure these dependencies precisely, identify the genuinely critical points and act where a supply disruption or an external political decision would create a systemic risk,’ he notes.
End-to-end digital trust: conditions, limits and trade-offs
On end-to-end digital trust, FnTC acknowledges that some hardware dependencies, particularly in equipment and networking, are difficult to overcome in the short term. However, it considers compromise unacceptable for trust infrastructure: cloud, digital identity, electronic signatures and archiving. ‘These building blocks underpin the rule of law and economic trust. Entrusting them to providers subject to extraterritorial laws exposes users to documented risks of foreign authorities accessing data without the knowledge or oversight of European users, through legal mechanisms such as the Cloud Act or FISA,’ Bernard Bailet observes.
Philippe Luce also clearly distinguishes the lower and upper layers of digital technology. In his view, end-to-end digital trust is now achievable in physical and network infrastructure, provided equipment is controlled, flows are closely monitored and ownership of monitoring data is retained. ‘The situation remains more fragile in software and cloud layers. Sovereignty requires the ability to operate without depending on an external “kill switch” and to accept, at least temporarily, reduced functionality in exchange for real control,’ he argues.
For Caroline Chopinaud, end-to-end digital trust is technically achievable because the necessary building blocks already exist. Its effectiveness nevertheless depends on coherent integration, robust governance and the use of open, sovereign standards, requiring a deliberate, structured approach. ‘This approach combines several inseparable pillars, from data sovereignty and trusted cloud to identity management, trustworthy AI based on open source, robust security mechanisms and a regulatory framework focused on resilience,’ she says.
However, Caroline Chopinaud identifies several areas requiring vigilance:
- the multiplication of human and non-human identities significantly expands the attack surface;
- AI can introduce new risks if poorly governed;
- digital trust relies on a permanent balance between innovation, security and privacy protection.
European regulation: a lever for sovereignty or a source of dependency?
In this context, it is reasonable to ask whether European regulation is a genuine lever or an obstacle for EU businesses. ‘European regulation — GDPR, DMA, AI Act, NIS2 and others — does more than impose constraints: it creates a stable, predictable environment that is essential for innovation. There is also a determination to harmonise and align the different texts so that the framework is as simple and clear as possible for our businesses,’ Caroline Chopinaud explains.
FnTC, meanwhile, considers European frameworks, particularly the GDPR, to be becoming international reference points. ‘Although compliance has a cost, these frameworks provide a level of trust and legal certainty that players subject to extraterritorial surveillance laws cannot guarantee. In this respect, European compliance can become a competitive advantage and an exportable quality label,’ comments Bernard Bailet.
On regulation, Philippe Luce acknowledges that it is an essential lever, particularly when dealing with non-European players. However, he warns against gold-plating and poorly calibrated reporting obligations, which can produce the opposite of the intended effect. He cites data centres, where excessively low thresholds have encouraged some players to outsource to non-European clouds, ultimately increasing dependency and loss of control.
