[idoubtit]

The chain of facts makes me sad:

1. The French government announces its digital agency is to write a plan, by the end of the year, so that France could reduce its extra-European dependencies. The communiqué is wrapped up with minor facts (e.g. the digital agency is to switch to Linux on dozens of computers) and big promises from Ministers.

2. Various news sites state that "France is ditching Windows", at least in their titles.

3. On new aggregators, most people react to the titles. Some do read the articles. Very few realize it's about promises to act toward a vague goal, with an unknown calendar, and many political uncertainties.

I would have hoped for more cautious reactions. It's not a leading act, not a reason to be proud, not a example to follow. It's just words.

The French government already made similar promises in the past. Sometimes, it did happen, like the Gendarmerie (rural police) switching to a Linux distribution. Sometimes, it didn't, like the pact signed by the Army Ministry with Microsoft in 2022: many clauses are still secret, even the prices.

[raincole]

This is EU, what else do you expect? European officials saying they're ditching Windows has become a ritual:

https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/german-open-source-expe...:

> The German Foreign Office first moved over to Linux as a server platform in 2001... the Foreign Office of Germany made the announcement (translated news report) that it is migrating away from Linux back to Windows as its desktop solution.

https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-so...:

> By December 2013, the city concluded the migration, with over 14,800 desktops running on LiMux... In November 2017, nearly four years after the conclusion of the migration, the Munich city council adopted a decision overhauling the move. All equipment was to be refitted with Windows 10 counterparts by 2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wienux:

> WIENUX[2] is a Debian-based Linux distribution developed by the City of Vienna in Austria... until 2008 when the download page was taken offline.

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST...:

> Birmingham City Council piloted OSS on hundreds of desktops in its public libraries in 2005-6. It originally planned to install Linux ... but this was over-ambitious for the time frame of the project and compatibility problems meant that the open source OpenOffice (office suite) and Firefox (web browser) were eventually run on Windows XP

[AlotOfReading]

The LiMux/Munich saga was actually successful to a large degree. What happened is that Microsoft put enormous efforts into killing it. High level people like Steve ballmer and Bill Gates made personal visits to Munich officials to win them back, Microsoft put a headquarters in Bavaria, and there were huge concessions. It's about as far as you can get from the image of empty promises and no action.

[oaiey]

And the Microsoft headquarter of Germany is in Munich. Tha means also potential tax losses if Microsoft moves away.

[gmerc]

Let’s not forget Eric Schmidt’s daughter boning the key german politicians

[bigfudge]

Those attempts happened before the US really made such a concrete demonstration it was a security and strategic risk though. That was back in the good old days where they at least pretended to be strategic partners.

It's good to be sceptical, but the US really does present a clear danger to the EU and UK now (and the rest of the world). I'm hopeful that this will actually materialise this time, and that Munich and Birmingham and the others will have paved the way and built some expertise.

[oaiey]

Yes. Back then it was anti-mega-cooperations/financial/pro-privacy stance, but now it is a sovereignity thing.

[gunsle]

The Reddit tier anti America FUD on this site never fails to get a chuckle out of me. Every single day the discussion here gets lower and lower quality.

[wolvoleo]

I think you underestimate how much trump is undermining trust in the US.

Pulling out of agreements, unilaterally starting unnecessary wars (and then whining that nobody participates), screwing up the world economy and oil markets, threatening tariffs on a whim, threatening Greenland. Trying to push conservative values on the rest of the world (eg companies with inclusion policies get blacklisted)

And this distrust is not going to go away even when a sane government replaces him. The American people already elected Trump twice. It's very clear that another similar president can be elected at any moment. It's not just Trump, there's a whole movement behind him that's not going to go away, like the heritage Foundation. The long-term trust is gone. And it's not coming back unless something substantially changes in the US which is very doubtful.

[ArtemZ]

What unnecessary wars did the US start so far? And what would you say is necessary to do when there is an extremely theocratic country with a goal of "wiping out" another country is getting close to create a nuclear weapon?

[wolvoleo]

The second Iraq war was completely unnecessary. The fake WMD stories have been well documented. America then created the power vacuum that allowed ISIS to grow to an international problem.

Afghanistan too, the exuse was 9/11 but the Taliban was never proven to be involved, it was all Saudi Arabians. But SA is a "friendly" nation so they had to go after Afghanistan instead. Meanwhile Bin Laden was living comfortably in Pakistan.

And Iran was not close to a nuclear weapon. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/iran-was-nowhere-... . It was just that Netanyahu had destroyed all he could of Gaza and needed another war to be able to stay in power.

Further back the Vietnam and Korea wars were unnecessary too, America had no business there. If they wanted to become communist that was their right. The only one I can consider justified in some way was the first gulf war, because Iraq did indeed invade Kuwait.

All Trump did was prove to Iran that they need a nuclear weapon to be safe. What would actually have worked (and did work) would have been guarantees. You know like the agreement Obama achieved and Trump trashed.

[will4274]

If Europe didn't have America as an ally, Europe wouldn't exist in 50 years.

[AlexeyBelov]

Do you have anything substantial to add to the discussion? Right now it's just a shallow dismissal.

[scheeseman486]

I'm an Australian and there isn't a single person I know that isn't anti-america at this point, that includes conservatives. This was reflected in the last election, where the party most aligned with the US got absolutely wrecked.

[Departed7405]

France'a Gendarmerie (one of two branch of law-enforcement) has switched to linux for more than a decade. There is little reason to think they are bluffing. Furthermore, the groundwork has been laid for months, with forks being worked on.

I understand your take generally, but here I don't understand the skepticism.

[oaiey]

Not only that, they already built up Matrix for messaging which is already adopted elsewhere. They are doing the steps

[wolvoleo]

They are already part of the way. They use "la suite" pretty extensively, it's an office suite based on open source components.

Migrating from windows as an OS is a logical next step.

Also the gendarmerie has their own dedicated Linux distribution for all their workstations as you mentioned. The French certainly have put in the work. It's not just talk.

[jrm4]

It shouldn't make you sad, it should make you curious.

Broadly, I've observed that there's way way way too little discussion of the extent to which money and power, somewhat behind the scenes, can be thrown at what feels like "tech decisions."

A while back, here in Florida, a state representative had a relative who was kind of into open source and had it explained to him. Representative was like "oh interesting idea, Florida should look into doing more of this"

And the suits from Microsoft came down swiftly to "correct" matters.

[icar]

What about https://github.com/cloud-gouv/securix, though?

[dopidopHN2]

You could be more pointed than that. French secret service "leveraging" Palantir is a disgrace , we all know who is leveraging who and its a plain shame.

[slibhb]

Performative anti-Americanism has become one of the major features of European culture (and especially French culture).

[x3ro]

What's performative about not wanting to go down with a sinking ship? Or are you under the illusion that the U.S. is doing particularly well right now? It appears that the "we have the bigger stick" strategy is finally meeting some resistance, and I am happy to see it.

[stephen_g]

I mean it’s not just that, the current administration have destroyed a bunch of the US’s oldest and most important alliances…

I’m not in Europe but in another allied country, the feeling amongst people here is that the US is not able to be trusted as a partner anymore.

And with ways the Government can apply pressure to US companies (CLOUD Act etc.) that extends to IS companies too.

[coliveira]

It's not the current administration that started this process. The US has for decades gone against the Europeans, step after step, asserting policies that only favor US companies. In the past however, the US administrations sugarcoated this fact with the language of cooperation. The current US government is now laying bare the fact that they're creating a political system where all technology and resources are controlled by the US and their "allies" are mere observers that should not do anything about it.

[oaiey]

This. This is something which the current administration does not understand. We Europeans have done what Washington says for 80 years. We are behaving like a colony. We let the US have bases here, we follow their economical model, the petro dollar and let them suck the wealth out of Europe. You want military bases on Greenland: ask friendly, we already said yes in the 50s. You want overflight rights for your wars: we give them to you since 80 years. You wanted access to our fibers. Oh let us help you with that.

It is the deal and the tone. You gave us security and let us participate in prosperity. You acted friendly. Trust, security and tone is replaced by bullying. Why should we continue to bend over?

[gunsle]

You guys have to bend over because you willfully sold out your constituents and dissolved competition in the name of anti racism gloablism. You guys could have had the same thriving tech sector anyone else does. There’s no conspiracy to keep you guys down. You do that to yourself, while simultaneously waxing poetic about how much better you are than Americans with your social programs. Well turns out you can either have your guaranteed social programs where no one ever has to truly work hard, or you can have economic growth. You guys made your choice 30+ years ago, you only have yourselves to blame.

[YZF]

Curious where you are. I am in Canada and it's certainly mixed feelings but I think there are plenty of Canadians that understand that despite the current craziness we're in this together for the long term. Similarly in the US there are plenty that understand this.

In relation to Europe vs. the US. Even before the current administration Europe has been at odds with American companies: "The European Union Renews Its Offensive Against US Technology Firms" (2022) - https://www.piie.com/sites/default/files/documents/pb22-2.pd...

The framing that this started now with the current administration is not correct. The current administration certainly heated things up so to speak and brought things to the surface but the tension has been there for a long while. Europe is not capable of competing with US tech in general for various structural reasons. Europeans tend to argue this is because of US power but we see countries like China and India succeeding where Europe fails.

The more interesting question is whether there is a large enough lasting change in the US that takes away its structural advantages. I don't think this is the case. If you look at AI the hub of world economic activity and innovation is still in the US including startups and incumbents. s/AI/anything/ . China is certainly trying, and arguably succeeding, in taking some of that but it's still not at the same level. Europe is not even a player.

[sveme]

Interestingly, China is succeeding because it isolated itself partially from US big tech. That enabled them to build their domestic companies. If you give free reign to US companies, they‘re going to swoop up any competition early on.

The US relies on being attractive for smart people. There are still smart people going to the US, but the general mood seems to be that it‘s increasingly less attractive. Mid term, little will change, long term the cultural hegemony of the US will be replaced by multipolar influences.

[slibhb]

> Mid term, little will change, long term the cultural hegemony of the US will be replaced by multipolar influences.

Everyone's been saying this for like 20 years. It just hasn't happened.

At some point you realize that the people constantly pushing "multipolarity" just really don't like the US. It's wishful thinking

[spwa4]

Why can't people understand this basic fact? China does not have a free press. The only information you're getting on public channels about China, unless you dig as deep as a financial analyst (i.e. getting trade data about China, but exclusively from non-Chinese sources. Other countries. Central Banks. Satellite images. Ship records. And so on) you are getting propaganda and nothing but propaganda.

So it doesn't matter what is going on with China, in the press you will always find "China is succeeding", with 1000 because's, usually "because" exactly what the last CCP meeting decided their economic plan is. It doesn't mean shit.

[YZF]

Top 3 CS programs still seem to be in the US. MIT, Stanford, CMU.

The US has its geography, weather, etc. which are not going away.

China has massive scale industrial espionage and learnt a lot by being the cheap place where things are made and stealing western companies processes. They also invested a lot in education and naturally they have a lot of smart people. I still think that as long as they have an oppressive regime the really smart people will prefer not to be there since the second you become successful you also become a threat to the regime. Their work culture is also pretty toxic.

https://monitor.icef.com/2025/11/there-were-more-internation...

It's hard to predict long term but the US has a culture of innovation going back maybe hundreds of years, it has relative freedom, it has capital to invest, land and resources, and overall it has good people (and crazy people which was always true). Most of the conditions that made the US what it is are still there and most of the conditions that made places like Europe unable to compete are also still there. The US is a lot more diverse than it used to be as well.

[petre]

Everything went South after the US listened to Merkel's phone. That happened during the Obama administration.

If the EU or France are not capable of adopting Linux instead of M$ on the desktop, how are they going to switch phones over to something else that is not US based? By something else I don't mean Huawei.

[oaiey]

Oh Android OS is quite workable. The hardware is the problem. And there the whole world goes to South Asia / China. Same with laptops.

But yeah, a missing agenda item. I guess desktop first. Have not said that for a while

[slibhb]

France deciding, in principle, to come up with a plan for not using Microsoft is performative. It stops being performative when they actually do it. At any rate, is there a good reason for France to stop using Microsoft? I'm doubtful. It's a bit like the DoD declaring Anthropic a "supply chain risk"; basically performative.

To respond to the rest of your post: while the Trump administration's behavior has diminished US standing in the world, the US is doing well compared to Europe in many important dimensions (e.g. economic growth). Also, far-right parties in Europe seem much more dangerous than the right in the US.

But all of that is a side show. European skepticism of the US has its roots in the postwar era. It's fundamentally about resentment. Europe is geopolitically weak and depends on the US for defense which is galling, especially for France with its history as a global power.

[bigfudge]

> European skepticism of the US has its roots in the postwar era.

This is crazy. The Europeans fell hook line and sinker for the line that the US could be trusted to manage security for Europe and would always be a dependable ally. That suited everyone — Europe because we could focus spending on post war reconstruction, and the US because you made a shit tonne of money by being the world's arms dealer and policeman.

There was no resentment of the US. Europe was in love with US culture (weird French cinema rules aside). And especially Eastern Europe... who have now had the hardest of all disillusionments.

This administration has destroyed the goodwill and trust built up over 80 years, and the economic foundation which made you rich and powerful. Let's check back in 30 years and see if that was a good idea. I'm hopeful that French nukes and Ukrainian ingenuity (and MAGA incompetence) will see us through the next 10-15 years of transition as re right the past mistake of trusting the US.

[overfeed]

> The Europeans fell hook line and sinker for the line that the US could be trusted to manage security for Europe and would always be a dependable ally.

Charles de Gaulle didn't fall for it! I used to think he was an arrogant crank, but Trump has proven he was right all along to be critical of the US.

[vrganj]

You must live in a different reality from me. The EU has closed trade deals with India and Mercosur this year alone, recentering the global economy around itself.

Meanwhile, the resentment seems to radiate from the White House as they increasingly realize how their moves are making them irrelevant on the global stage.

We're not upset. We just don't think you matter anymore.

[drnick1]

> recentering the global economy around itself.

Wishful thinking.

[vrganj]

Europe is now at the center of the world's largest free trade zone of two billion people. That is objective fact, not a wish.

[pessimizer]

Wishful to the point of delusion. Europe is a stagnant backwater in a deep energy crisis that's about to get significantly deeper, and comforts itself on an completely unearned sense of moral superiority that it can't feed itself with.

This is also a self-inflicted wound. There's no reason that Europe should be in the situation that it is in other than it is run by elites that are, like everyone else, invested in the success of US companies, and have no particular loyalty to Europe. When they retire, they move to the US and get board seats, advisory positions, lobbyist jobs, and cushy university spots.

Europeans need to start engaging in rational thinking and to stop letting their politics revolve around zombie US institutions (like NATO) and electing functionaries from tiny little countries who have made an industry of covertly advocating for US interests in Europe. They also need to seriously rethink their relationships with Russia and China, and realize that when it comes to Russia, they were the bad guys so destroying their economies and futures over manufactured grudges and fantasies of invasion is an indulgence that their children can't afford.

Independence from the US means getting rid of their elites that work for the US, and getting rid of victimhood narratives about Russia (who at least occupied part of Europe) and China (who have never done a thing to them.) They should make BRICS EBRICS. If Europe doesn't wise up, they're just going to start killing each other. Thank God that France has nukes and can't be invaded again.

[Rexxar]

There is already 100000 workstations in a branch of the police with this Linux distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu

It's not performative.

[dopidopHN2]

Defense against who ? Russia ? Or the US ?

[noir_lord]

> Also, far-right parties in Europe seem much more dangerous than the right in the US.

Our far right parties are dangerous because they might get elected at some point, US far right parties are dangerous because they already did.

[YZF]

Well said on the site of Y-Combinator. A US company ran by Americans that mostly funds startups in the US. Clearly the US, the home of Apple, nVidia, Anthropic, Open AI, SpaceX, Google, Meta, Amazon, Tesla etc. is sinking while the EU the home of (? ... well, there is ASML) is going to be running the world.

Linus works on Linux from ... Portland, Oregon. And oh, look at where Linux contributions are coming from:

https://insights.linuxfoundation.org/project/korg/contributo...

EU's GDP is so catching up with the US:

https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-...

NOT

[peyton]

It is admittedly pretty goofy to get exactly what you want—an army of people making rules for everything under the sun—and come on here and complain about what we’re doing.

Even TFA, which is about yet another rule, has a goofy quote from the Minister of something or other about breaking free from American tools. Linux seems pretty American to me [1]. Maybe they’ll fork. Would be cool.

[1]: https://insights.linuxfoundation.org/project/korg/contributo...

[petre]

Well, does it matter? It worked for China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylin_(operating_system)

[x3ro]

Yes exactly, just like the.. uhm.. the British Empire could not have possibly declined? Your point is that, because the U.S. has big companies and wealth, it can't be a sinking ship? Because to me this seems like a straw-man.

What I'm saying is that the U.S. is currently in decline, and many will agree with me. Where this leads your (I'm assuming) country, nobody knows. But to me, it doesn't look great.

[YZF]

I'm not American. But I guess I feel part of the US led western world order.

The US has big companies and wealth because it has the right ecosystem to create those.

The US is in decline is a meme. Decline can't be measured over short intervals. Maybe it is maybe it isn't. We'll see in 5 decades.

One thing I'm pretty sure about is that this decline of the US that many seem to be excited for and wishing here, if or when it happens, is not going to end well for most of those people. Another way of saying this is that most of the people commenting here have benefited and still benefit from the dominance of the US and the technology and innovation coming out of it, including Y Combinator. What is the long term strategic thinking behind "let's attack the US and make it fail" -> the answer is none. It should be in the interest of most of us to see more US success. We whine as everything around us is an outcome of that success.

Warren Buffet's "Never bet against America" still very much holds in my opinion.

[gunsle]

It’s a losing battle trying to convince these Reddit refugees that they are the cause of their own stagnation and that yes they’ve all benefited from the American global order. These people wish for the destruction of American hegemony but have literally no idea how bad things will get economically were their childish ideations reality.

[will4274]

In 2025, USA GDP grew by 2.0%. In 2025, EU GDP grew by 1.5%. Government spending (a proxy for government power) is a fraction of GDP, usually between 10% of GDP and 30% of GDP.

So, while the US may not be doing particularly well right now, it's still doing better than Europe.

[vrganj]

As a European, the Anti-Americanism is not performative.

It's a deep disconnect in values, brought to the forefront by the current administration and the oligarchs running wild.

America used to be seen as an example, the big brother watching out for us.

Now it's a cautionary tale of greed, hubris and societal decay, as well as an increasingly antagonistic actor of global instability.

Y'all ruined your reputation and the fact you're trying to pin that on us is just another example of said hubris. Until you at least own up to it, there's no viable path to recovery.

[will4274]

You're right about the values disconnect. In America, we believe in democracy and individual rights. In Europe, y'all still have kings and queens and authoritarian governments.

[8note]

do you still believe in democracy?

every election, americans make a big stink about how you belive in republicanism because democracy is evil, and that being a republic is somehow mutually exclusive with democracy

[vrganj]

It is quite silly to say things like that while armed paramilitaries patrol your streets and throw innocent people in torture campsm

[slibhb]

It's mostly performative, and posts like this prove the point.

[vrganj]

Meanwhile, I believe your post proves my point. Funny how perspective works, isn't it?

It feels like the last tantrum of a dying empire from our vantage point.

Sad, but ultimately irrelevant.

[slibhb]

I see one person having a tantrum in this thread (and it's not me).

[pessimizer]

No, you were having a discussion, and now you're the one who just had a tantrum. If you're going to be personally offended when somebody says that the US looks like it is throwing a tantrum, nobody worthwhile is going to think it's worth talking to you.

[monkey_monkey]

Does feel like it's you though.

[vrganj]

Yet again, you are vocalizing my exact thoughts.

Feels like the disconnect I described is real, doesn't it?

Might not be performative after all then...

[maest]

"Tantrum" is a choice word.

[gunsle]

There’s nothing more hilarious to me than neck beard euros waxing poetic about America doing them dirty while simultaneously using “ya’ll” in the very same post. I’ve never once heard a European say ya’ll and I’ve met a lot of them.

[AlexeyBelov]

Can we, like, not say stuff like "neck beard euros"? And this is less that two hours after your own complaint about Reddit-like discussions on this site.

[vrganj]

Linguistic flexibility is a key part of the European identity :-)

[drnick1]

> It's a deep disconnect in values

So, it's performative. While they complain about American hegemony, Europeans buy iPhones (or Android), drink Coke, scroll Instagram, and listen to Taylor Swift. And while they might object to NATO spending, decades of inadequate military spending have left Europe with no real alternative to buying protection from America.

[dopidopHN2]

Its moving the needle. There is a lot to be done but its moving

[bigfudge]

The French are just (wonderfully) arrogant enough to say what everyone else is thinking. The UK will likely be too spineless to actually follow through, but the Germans and Eastern Europeans are not going to tolerate the level of exposure we all have to US craziness any longer.

[will4274]

The French are just arrogant enough to believe themselves major players on the world stage.

[8note]

to be fair, its canada thats knly part french thats saying what everyone is thinking nowadays

[bertil]

Some big moneyed interests are trying to split Europe and the US.

The current US administration is definitely not helping, but every ad I see on the Reddit main feed is a blatant attack on the relation, from brand new subreddits, pointing at magazines I’ve never heard about before. I’ve been reporting them, but it keeps coming, from constantly different sources, different names, subreddits, but always the same vague but incredible incredibly provocative titles

I suspect that some social-media-addled senior US officials are being fed the same crap because their reactions to non-existent European reaction are not grounded in reality.

[overfeed]

> Some big moneyed interests are trying to split Europe and the US. The current US administration is definitely not helping

Did you listen/read Vance's recent speeches in Hungary? Or read the US policy document put out months back? It goes way beyond merely "not helping" - the US administration is in turns provoking, alienating and separating itself from center/center-left European governments in pursuit of exporting extremist partisan politics in the hopes of getting far-right governments elected across Europe.

European citizens and politicians everywhere can see the actions for what they are. What was that about Greenland and annexing Canada? There's no big-money conspiracy, just a bully administration with no sense of second-and third-order effects.

[bertil]

I’m not saying that Vance is not doing that—God knows that man’s ethics has no floor.

I’m doubtful he paid for ads to make his disdain better known. So I suspect someone else is trying to make that happen beyond what Vance can with his speeches.

[overfeed]

> I’m doubtful he paid for ads to make his disdain better known.

They are not separate efforts - the administration is working hand in glove with the said interests that Vance worked for in his VC days, sponsored his Senate campaign, and parachuted him onto the Trump ticket.

[sveme]

Trump is all that‘s needed for that. The Greenland saga alone was sufficient. And then he attacked Iran.

[bertil]

Trump is too cheap to have paid for those ads.

[petre]

He's probably an instrument of those interests as well.

'We'll prop up this crazy narcissistic bully and the suckers are gonna vote for him, mainly because Biden has been a disaster. Then he'll put other idiots in charge, go after the EU and Iran just because and make us piles of cash in the process.'.

[mytailorisrich]

It is always easy to make big announcements but harder to follow through.

They'd need a strong software and tech industry and ecosystem but in general business and economic policy, especially in France, is as hostile as possible and harder to change politically.