Two French MPs presented their military cybersecurity recommendations to their colleagues, building on the French position on procurement, cloud, and resource sovereignty, on Wednesday at the National Assembly.
Anne Le Hénanff (Horizons, Renew Europe) and Frédéric Mathieu (LFI, The Left) presented to their colleagues of the Defence Commission at the National Assembly their 35 recommendations to address military cybersecurity challenges, a project that was kick-started in March 2023.
“We are inclined to believe that France in particular, and Europe in general, are insignificant little things,” said Mathieu, who then said that the EU and France had the means to develop their tools away from US warfare solutions.
In line with the EU guidelines for 5G security, which sets security standards for suppliers of critical infrastructures, the two co-rapporteurs suggested “set cybersecurity standards for [defence] businesses”.
They also suggested “limit to the strict necessary” the use of foreign arms systems, quoting US Big Tech services. They did not specifically mention Chinese vendors, although the Commission decided in June 2023 to restrict or exclude Huawei and ZTE from telecommunications networks.
Moreover, in the MP’s view, France should accelerate its data migration to sovereign and secure cloud solutions, such as clouds which have been granted the French strictest certification scheme: SecNumCloud.
Yet, sovereign clouds “still need time,” said Le Hénanff, explaining cloud service providers do not yet have enough capacities to receive migration data from all French Ministries.
Still, Le Hénanff shared her confidence that things were moving in the right direction, quoting the French bill to “secure and regulate the digital space” and the current European cybersecurity certification scheme negotiations for a harmonised EU cloud certification.
She also welcomed the cloud offers by Orange and Capgemini, which respectively created a joint venture with US tech giants Microsoft and Amazon, although she recognised she did not know if the French cybersecurity agency would grant these solutions with the SecNumCloud certification.
Eventually, the report recommends conducting a thorough impact assessment to equip the French military with a quantum computer, suggesting a European partnership if necessary.
Le Hénanff and Mathieu backed their recommendation, explaining that they were surprised that high-level policy experts in the military did not understand the technology or have a clear strategy about it.
The need is dire, they said, because France and Europe are lagging behind the “Americans and Chinese”.
“If we consider that a quantum computer could in the nearer future be a new form of military deterrence on the same level as nuclear weapons, acquiring one is not an option because it would prevent many states with comparable capabilities from attacking us,” concluded Mathieu.
(Théophane Hartmann | Euractiv France)
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