[vladvasiliu]

I think the issue is that since email is more and more required to interact with the Government services, they should also provide a usable alternative. Why have your citizens rely on random foreign services from which they may be cut off because a bot somewhere is having a bad day?

In France at least, many people (mostly the elderly) are having a hard time using computers and such. Some Government agencies have dedicated personnel to help them with filling in the forms and such on dedicated computers. It could probably be easier for them if they also provided email instead of relying on a third party provider. Grandma lost her password? No biggie. If she has her ID, we can reset it for her. Good luck getting any kind of support from Google / Yahoo in such a case.

Of course, I will explicitly say that I would be very much against such a service being compulsory for the people. I just think it should exist.

[sofixa]

The post office ( La Poste) offer free emails, so there already is a non-foreign not-exactly-for-profit free email service out there. Plus all the ISPs also offer emails ( by default, you get an email with your plan, and on some ISPs you can't refuse it), but honestly that's just a terrible idea.

[vladvasiliu]

Of course, ISP email is a horrible idea, and I think the government should actively discourage people from using those for their services.