France dumps Palantir from DGSI contract six months after renewal, bets on local ChapsVision
Six months after renewing its Palantir contract for another three years, the French domestic intelligence agency is preparing to walk away in favour of ChapsVision’s ArgonOS, part of a €655M AI sovereignty push by PM Sébastien Lecornu.
The switch
France’s domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI, will replace Palantir’s data-analysis tools with ArgonOS, a platform built by the French company ChapsVision, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Tuesday. The decision is a sharp reversal: Palantir announced a three-year DGSI contract renewal in December 2025, extending a relationship that had run for the better part of a decade. The government did not explain how the two decisions sit together, leaving an awkward sequence.
The replacement is the outcome of a procurement process launched in 2022 for a heterogeneous-data-processing tool. ChapsVision competed alongside the Thales-Eviden joint venture Athea and others. As of late 2025, none of the domestic candidates had reached operational stage, which kept Palantir in place. The announcement signals the government now judges the homegrown alternative mature enough to commit to.
Sovereignty push
Lecornu framed the move inside a wider drive to put sovereign technology at the centre of the French state. In a social media video he announced €655 million ($760 million) of new public investment in developing the country’s own AI and said all civil servants will gain access to an AI assistant based on technology from France’s Mistral AI.
We cannot accept new strategic dependencies in the digital sphere.
He added that France should "not depend on the good will of certain partners, who are capable of turning off the access tap" for artificial intelligence – a direct reference to Washington’s decision last week to cut off access to Anthropic’s Fable model for non-American users.
European pattern
The French move is part of a broader European reassessment. Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the BfV, recently chose ChapsVision over Palantir for its own data analysis, and the Bundeswehr has been pressing for a secure cloud with no foreign-firm structural access. In Britain, lawmakers earlier this month called for the National Health Service to end its £330 million contract with the American company.
Reliance on a small number of US-based providers represents a clear vulnerability.
The London mayor’s office also blocked a bid by the Metropolitan Police to work with Palantir. The pattern is European governments reconsidering how much of their most sensitive infrastructure should run on American software.
Political and business context
Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel, a right-wing billionaire close to US President Donald Trump and supported by the CIA. The company has worked with the US government on identifying undocumented immigrants and targets in the US-Israel war on Iran. Campaign groups warn its products risk mass surveillance and data-protection infringements; Palantir insists it merely provides powerful data-processing services.
Palantir’s French arm did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Fable cutoff has already prompted calls for greater AI independence from candidates across the political spectrum for next year’s French presidential election.
- France launches procurement for a heterogeneous-data-processing tool.
- DGSI renews Palantir contract for another three years.
- Anthropic’s Fable model access cut for non-US users.
- PM Lecornu announces DGSI will replace Palantir with ChapsVision ArgonOS and unveils €655M AI plan.
- British lawmakers urge NHS to end Palantir contract; German BfV already chose ChapsVision.
