France Drops US Spy Software Palantir, Bets On Homegrown AI For Its Spy Agency

France's domestic intelligence agency, DGSI, will replace Palantir Technologies data tools with a local alternative made by ChapsVision, as European countries increasingly seek to reduce their dependence on US tech firms. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu made the announcement on Tuesday in a video posted on X, calling it a matter of national security and strategic independence.

"We cannot accept new strategic dependencies in the digital sphere," Lecornu said, expressing his desire to "build genuine autonomy" so as "not to depend on the goodwill of certain partners, who are capable of turning off the tap on access" to AI.

Watch the video here:

Comme l'électricité hier, comme Internet il y a trente ans, l'intelligence artificielle change déjà nos vies.

Le temps des expérimentations est terminé. J'ai décidé d'accélérer la transformation de l'État :

→ un assistant conversationnel souverain commun pour tous les agents… pic.twitter.com/bAMDPEKqVh

— Sébastien Lecornu (@SebLecornu) June 16, 2026

A Shock Move After a Fresh Contract

The announcement comes as a surprise, as the DGSI renewed its contract with Palantir as recently as last December for a further three years. The precise terms of the transition and the timetable for rolling out the new solution have yet to be set out by French authorities, according to Euronews.

Shortly after the announcement, Palantir said in a statement that the contract concluded with the DGSI remains "fully in force". Lecornu's office later clarified that Palantir's tools would continue to be used until ChapsVision's systems could be integrated, to avoid a capability gap.

Who Is ChapsVision?

ChapsVision aims to become one of the European leaders in data intelligence and agentic artificial intelligence, and had already won an initial DGSI contract in 2024 covering the processing of heterogeneous data. The new contract allows it to take over the exploitation of mass data, a field historically occupied by Palantir.

A Wider European Trend

Last month, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, reportedly also chose ChapsVision over Palantir to handle its data analytics, according to RT International. Separately, the government will provide all civil servants with access to an AI assistant powered by domestic champion Mistral AI.France also plans to invest 655 million euros in artificial intelligence and set up a shared chatbot for all state departments, along with a public health chatbot and a new digital platform to simplify access to public data.