TL;DR
France and Germany have pledged to develop a sovereign alternative to Palantir’s military software. Arcadia model of France. Both countries have already turned down Palantir for ChapsVision.
France and Germany pledged on Friday Developing a European alternative to Palantir’s military artificial intelligence program. In a joint declaration signed after talks between Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz, the two countries “Europe’s sovereign digital backbone“encompassing data-centric security, artificial intelligence and cloud solutions. France’s Arcadia, an AI-powered command-and-control platform, was named as the starting point, along with an unspecified “.comparable German solutions.“
The announcement came after both countries moved to remove Palantir from their intelligence services. France’s DGSI announced in June that Palantir was replacing ChapsVision with ArgonOS.Six months after the American firm renewed its contract. Germany’s BfV chose ChapsVision for the same role. The Bundeswehr has completely excluded Palantir from defense cloud procurement. A top NATO commander recently told Politico that there is no real European alternative to Palantir’s Maven software, which the alliance uses to process data on the battlefield. Friday’s declaration is the answer from Paris and Berlin: to build one.
The joint statement also includes missiles, tanks and space. France, Germany and Great Britain will explore cooperation on long-range weapons with a range of 2,500 kilometers, using the capabilities of ArianeGroup. The Franco-German MGCS tank program, intended to replace the Leopard 2 and Leclerc, will begin a research program on autonomous driving, sensors and battlefield networking. The troubled FCAS next-generation fighter jet was conspicuously absent from the declaration. Instead, the two countries “European joint combat standard” so warplanes and drones of different nations can communicate in the field.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp said Germany refused to review his company.talks about witchcraft“ In an interview with Bild last month, he argued that the program has been proven on every serious battlefield. This argument did not move Berlin. The issue of sovereignty is not whether Palantir’s technology works, it clearly does, but whether Europe’s most sensitive military infrastructure depends on an American company at a time when transatlantic relations cannot be taken for granted. France and Germany have now put this question in a joint declaration. The harder part is that they can’t turn it into a working program.
