French city Lyon ditches Microsoft, cites need to reduce dependence on US tech

In a bid to reduce dependence on American software, Lyon, a city in France, has announced that it’s ditching Microsoft’s Office suite for open-source tools.

The government of Lyon, France’s third-largest city and second-largest economic hub, said in an announcement it’s planning to adopt Linux and PostgreSQL instead.

Additionally, Office will be replaced with OnlyOffice, a package developed by Latvia-based Ascensio Systems. The latter has been made available under version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License, a free copyleft license for software and other kinds of works.

Besides, the municipality also plans to adopt a collaboration suite called “Territoire Numerique Ouvert” – “Open Digital Territory” – for videoconferencing and office automation tasks. The plan is to get it running in local data centers.

“To no longer be dependent on American software solutions and acquire true digital sovereignty, the City of Lyon has embarked on a major transformation of its digital tools,” reads the municipality’s statement.

The city officials also explained they want to extend the lifespan of its hardware, therefore reducing its environmental impact.

Of course, Lyon’s government employs only 10,000 people, so its decision to ditch Microsoft won’t significantly impact the software giant’s balance sheet. The corporation is deep into the generative AI race right now, anyway.

However, Lyon’s move follows similar decisions by Denmark’s ministry for digitalization and the city governments of Copenhagen and Aarhus.

Sure, not that long ago, the US President Donald Trump simply couldn’t stop publicly calling for America to take over Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, so an interest in digital sovereignty is only natural.

Generally, mistrust of American tech in Europe has reached levels so high that the US tech giants have by now addressed European customers, trying to reassure them about their data security.

For example, Amazon Web Services recently said it was establishing a new EU-based cloud unit “backed by strong technical controls, sovereign assurances, and legal protections.”

Microsoft, by the way, also announced new European digital commitments in April, including “a promise to uphold Europe’s digital resilience regardless of geopolitical and trade volatility.”

Lyon is not convinced, it seems.