France says no to “Free” Office365 and Google Workspace in schools
Free service offers such as Office365 and Google Workspace are excluded from public procurement according to the French Ministry. Their position reflects ongoing European concerns about cloud data sovereignty, competition, and privacy rules. Paid versions of these cloud services might be an option if they hadn’t already been disallowed based on worries about data safety. French authorities consider Microsoft and Google cloud services that store data in the US to be non-compliant with European data regulations like GDPR and with “Schrems II” – a 2020 ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union governing data sharing across borders.