The country’s government will be building and testing a messaging app designed for government communications. This move also means that the French government will be ditching other messaging apps such as Telegram (which has recently been banned in Russia), WhatsApp, and Signal.
According to government officials, these apps were never used for strategic or confidential communications anyway. Instead they are used for logistics and technical information, but they state that this could still bring unwanted attention, such as the planning of the logistics of the first lady’s visit to a zoo.
The government has also expressed their concern should a breach occur and if the data was stored in another country. This seems to be a recurring concern amongst governments, which in the past has resulted in some companies being forced to play ball by transferring some data to be stored on local servers.