Atos: what are the activities "sovereign" of the IT group that the State wants to keep at all costs?
Are there French musketeers to save Atos? The struggling French IT group has significantly increased its financing needs, in a new business plan unveiled on Monday April 29, after a disappointing start to the year in terms of its activity. In the midst of financial turmoil, the former flagship of French Tech – which is to be one of the technological pillars of the Paris Olympic Games this summer – has specified that it now needs 1.1 billion euros in liquidity to finance its activity in 2024-2025 (compared to 600 million euros previously estimated).
Faced with these difficulties, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire announced, on Sunday, that he had sent the struggling French IT giant Atos a letter of intent with a view to acquiring all activities “sovereign” of the group, in order to prevent strategic activities for France from “pass into the hands of foreign actors“, he declared on LCI.
Clearly, the State wants above all to avoid any leak of these strategic activities of the French company, because they relate to defense, nuclear power and cybersecurity. Atos notably owns supercomputers used for nuclear deterrence and contracts with the French army. French Defense also has contracts with Atos for its IT and communications systems.
Finally, the letter of intent from Bruno Le Maire, greeted with “satisfaction“by the group, targets servers used for artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other cybersecurity products. These activities”must remain under the exclusive control of France., insists the Minister of the Economy, on LCI. Hence this State acquisition project, at a time when Atos is in turmoil.
At the head of the group for around ten years, until 2019, the European Commissioner for Digital, Thierry Breton, insisted on France Inter on the fact that the company had assets “strategic for Europe“: “I didn’t want some of these assets to go into hands that weren’t European, that’s also why I acquired them. So I think it’s very important that it stays in Europe“, he explained.
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