The award of a social network monitoring contract to Talkwalker, a Luxembourg company that has gone under the Canadian flag, has triggered an intense media and political campaign. Under the guise of sovereignty, private interests are mobilising their influence and communications with questionable arguments.
Since the health crisis, the outbreak of war in Ukraine and Donald Trump's return to power, sovereignty is no longer a dirty word. As Mario Draghi wrote last September in his famous report The future of European competitivenesse : "Yesterday's global paradigm is disappearing... Geopolitical stability is diminishing and our dependencies have turned out to be vulnerabilities...".
The world of business and politics is finally waking up to the need for greater autonomy, an end to naivety and better defence of national and European priorities. Bercy's recent reaction, albeit belated, to the takeover of Exaion by the American company Mara is proof of this.
The consensus is so widespread today that the reference to sovereignty is systematically perceived as legitimate, even when it is brandished to defend particular interests with debatable arguments that do not stand up to the test of facts. This is the case in relation to a social network monitoring contract, worth around €8 million over 4 years, awarded in France before the summer by the government information service (SIG) to the 'foreign' company Talkwalker.
This public organisation, which reports to the French Prime Minister, issues a call for tenders every four years to collect data in order to measure public opinion, identify weak signals on emerging issues or potential crises. Brands and organisations use these solutions to check their reputation or measure the performance of an advertising campaign.
A vast communication campaign
Since the outcome of the call for tenders before the summer, Visibrain, its ousted French competitor, has been crying out loud and clear about the injustice and lack of consideration for French interests. Until now it had held the contract. A vast communication and lobbying campaign is being conducted with the very active support of the public relations agency Image 7.
From Parisien-Aujourd'hui en France at Canard EnchaînéIn recent months, the French press has been full of indignation about the contract awarded to a company presented as "Canadian with American capital", or even as an "American company".
" It's worrying: the government chooses a... foreign company to monitor social networks"headline Le Parisien-Aujourd'hui en France 18 June
"Social network monitoring: the French government ousts a French company in favour of an American service provider"followed Valeurs actuelles on 24 June.
"We're giving the keys to the safe to burglars": how the GIS is selling off France's digital sovereignty".said Marianne the following day.
" What is the price of sovereignty?": giving the keys to information intelligence to Canada's Talkwalker, a highly criticised government decision"continued Challenges on 27 June.
Mobilisation of members of parliament
The hype didn't stop with the press. No fewer than 66 MPs took action and wrote to Prime Minister François Bayrou asking him to reverse the decision. Many spoke out in the media and on social networks: "We condemn this decision and reiterate the importance of supporting our French and European companies.", wrote MP Paul Midy, also spokesman for the Ensemble pour la République (EPR) MPs, Emmanuel Macron's party, on Linkedin.
"Given the geopolitical context, it would be irresponsible to abandon to foreign powers this mine of information that is so vital to many of our intelligence, safety and security services."Vanina Paoli-Gagin, Senator for the Aube region, put it this way during a topical question to the government. "How could GIS have been so naive?"She asked Clara Chappaz, the French Minister for Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Economy.
"It's unacceptable!
"This type of decision is unacceptable. It's unacceptable because we can't keep talking about digital sovereignty and hide behind the public procurement code to make this kind of decision."she conceded. The Public Procurement Code rules out national preference.
Visibrain's CEO, who has been very active in the press, is also raising the issue of sovereignty. According to Nicolas Huguenin, the choice of this company presents risks of sensitive data leaking across the Atlantic, in connection with the American Cloud Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act) to which it would be subject. "The Talkwalker application uses American services. There is therefore a risk of data being captured by foreign entities."he says.
An abnormally low price?
Visibrain also criticises SIG for accepting an abnormally low and unfair price from Talkwalker: "We thought their price was three times lower than ours. However, we have new information which leads us to believe that the price is five times lower than our offer and that of all the other candidates.s", calculates Nicolas Huguenin. Finally, Visibrain criticised the fact that its rival did not include monitoring on TikTok, even though this was a market requirement.
Talkwalker refutes each of these arguments. "The GIS call for tenders, which includes the award of 4 or 5 lots, is part of a perfectly normal process in which we already participated in 2021.It's not just a question of the quality of the service," says Charlotte Clemens, European Sales Director at Talkwalker and Hootsuite, the Canadian company that acquired it in 2024. At the time, Talkwalker had already won one of the prizes, albeit a smaller one than the one at the centre of the current controversy. This time, three other components of the competition were also awarded to French companies, Blum, Trajan and Deep Opinion, as Clara Chappaz reminded the senator from Aube.
Market prices
Talkwalker, which already equips a number of governments with social listening solutions, also denies having "broken the market", with an offer that defies all competition: "Four years ago, we proposed a similar price, which didn't shock anyone. This time, we've simply applied a 5 % increase, which is in line with inflation. We're in line with market prices, no more and no less."says the Frenchwoman.
Finally, Charlotte Clemens refutes the criticism levelled at TikTok: "In fact, we have a partnership with TikTok, via their official API, which is currently being rolled out. It's being rolled out in three phases. Phases 1 and 2 are complete, and phase 3 is on its way. So to say that we don't cover TikTok is simply not true."she protests.
Talkwalker may have been part of the Hootsuite group for a year, but it is in fact a European company. Founded in 2010 by Thibaut Britz, Christophe Folschette and Robert Glaesener, three Luxembourg entrepreneurs, its headquarters are still in the Grand Duchy, where it employs around a hundred people. Its shareholders are American and Canadian private equity funds such as Accel Partners, Insight Partners and Omers Ventures. But there's nothing unusual about this type of European technology company, like Mistral AI. Venture capital and innovation financing are much more developed on the other side of the Atlantic.
Nearly 50 employees
Talkwalker is far from being a stowaway in France. After opening an office in Paris five years ago, the company now employs almost 50 people there with Hootsuite. Finally, the risk of sensitive information leaking out seems limited, given that the data is public and anonymous. Talkwalker's servers are not based across the Atlantic, but in Germany.
Visibrain's application to have the contract annulled was rejected, the court ruling against it on all of its claims. The French company was even ordered to pay €1,000 to its rival and a further €1,000 to the French government. The judge ruled that the price was justified by the competitiveness and technical expertise of the foreign company.
Asked to explain the alleged dumping, Talkwalker pointed to over 15 years' expertise in the industry, advanced automation of its processes limiting manual tasks to a minimum, a privileged partnership with X (formerly Twitter), enabling it to charge a preferential rate, the size of its business making it easier to share costs between thousands of customers, and a business model based on volume and reduced unit costs. "The applicant company is not entitled to claim that the contracting authority made a manifest error of assessment in considering that the successful company's tender was not abnormally low."concluded the judge on 17 June.
Now that the era of happy globalisation is over, sovereignty must certainly become a central criterion for economic decisions. But we must not fight the wrong battle and preserve this principle, which is too precious to be exploited for partisan ends. Nor should it be allowed to turn in on itself, which would be counterproductive and costly for our public finances, which are in a very poor state.