By Mathieu Rosemain

PARIS (Reuters), – Thales, a French defense company, and Google have announced a partnership to provide state-vetted cloud computing services that can store some of France’s most sensitive data.

Thales is Europe’s biggest defence electronics supplier and Alphabet (NASDAQ) fulfills a May government plan where France recognized the U.S. technological supremacy in this field.

French officials stated then that the cloud computing services created by Microsoft and Google (NASDAQ: ) could be used in France to store sensitive corporate data. However, French companies must have access to these services.

Thales and Google Cloud jointly stated that they would create a France-based business and Thales would be majority shareholder.

This company will offer all the services of Google Cloud, but it would have its own network and servers that are separate to those available for clients.

Marc Darmon of Thales’ secure communication and information system, stated that the company will run Google software on its infrastructure. “This includes layers of security to ensure cybersecurity as well as protection of data from external rules.”

Google, Microsoft and Amazon.com (NASDAQ) are the market leaders in cloud storage. This has fueled concerns about Europe regarding the potential surveillance of Americans in the aftermath of their adoption. CLOUD Act 2018

To get a label of “trusted cloud”, the Thales-Google partnership must have approval from France’s cybersecurity agency ANSSI.

Guillaume Poupard has welcomed the project and stated that it met all criteria for certification.

According to the groups, the company must be established in the first half of 2022 and should be operational by the beginning of 2023.

Bleu would take on the company. It is a partnership between Capgemini, an IT consultancy firm, and Orange telecoms. Bleu aims at using Microsoft’s cloud technology.