The Prime Minister wants “this revolution to benefit the French” and “protect our sovereignty”, on the eve of the opening of VivaTech in Paris.
Sébastien Lecornu announced “an additional 655 million euros” dedicated to “the development of artificial intelligence” via the France 2030 program. The announcement was made “in a video broadcast on his social networks” by the Prime Minister on Tuesday, on the eve of the opening of the VivaTech show in Paris. He declared that he wanted “this revolution to benefit the French”, that it “protects our sovereignty” and “strengthens our public services”.
A targeted budgetary effort and stated priorities
The Prime Minister specified that these investments will “support infrastructure, computing capacities, research, businesses and industrial sectors”. He indicated that the “capacity” of ministries to use AI “will now be taken into account in budgetary decisions”. “Each ministry will have to demonstrate how it uses artificial intelligence to simplify procedures, improve the service provided to the French and reduce unnecessary tasks”, in order to “make savings without reducing the quality of public service”.
In implementation, the Ministries of Justice and the Interior will have access to the most advanced technologies this year via the GenIAl portal, already used by the Ministry of the Armed Forces, to process sensitive data and, for example, speed up the processing of visas. In terms of health, the Ameli Health Insurance site will have a public health assistant based on artificial intelligence to better guide patients, who will be able to entrust their health data to an AI managed by Health Insurance and not to a foreign company.
Sébastien Lecornu justified this strategic shift by asserting: “We cannot accept new strategic dependencies in digital technology”, wishing to “build real autonomy” so as not to “depend on the goodwill of certain partners, capable (…) of turning off the access tap” to AI. In this context, the General Directorate of Internal Security decided to terminate its contract with Palantir and finally retained the French company ChapsVision.
At the same time, the government promises better access to public data (demographic, economic, geographic, administrative) via a new public platform dedicated to AI, to support the ecosystem and uses.
The Trump administration last week ordered the American start-up Anthropic to suspend “any foreign national” from accessing its two most powerful models, Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5, citing “national security”. Several declared or potential presidential candidates — Jordan Bardella, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Gabriel Attal, Edouard Philippe and Bruno Retailleau — have warned against an “AI war” and underlined the need for independence from the United States.
The 10th edition of VivaTech, the largest European event in the sector, opens in Paris from Wednesday to Saturday and will put AI, robots and digital sovereignty at the center in the face of American and Chinese technology giants. The government announcement comes ahead of this meeting, where computing capabilities, public uses and technological independence will be highlighted.
Previous milestones in defense and cybersecurity
On March 8, 2024, Sébastien Lecornu, then Minister of the Armed Forces, launched the ministerial strategy relating to artificial intelligence, announcing the creation before the summer of a Ministerial Agency for Defense AI (Amiad). This agency, dedicated to the sovereign mastery of these technologies, was to have 300 people, with a research component based at the Ecole Polytechnique and a production component based in Bruz (Ille-et-Vilaine). He then estimated: “Either the French army takes its time, or it fails.”
On April 30, 2026, he also indicated in a Le Figaro video that 200 million euros of investments would be released the following week in the fight against cyberattacks, illustrating the emphasis placed on digital and security capabilities.
