Nota bene how the description omits the world “encryption”. Timeo Frenchmen et dona ferentes
this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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Microsoft Teams is such a horrible piece of software that productivity will rise after abandoning Teams.
Any exec who makes people use that should be fired
I get that government use needs to be stringently tested for security, and so things take a little longer. But really, there are PLENTY of good FOSS products in existence that can be used as a base framework and a head-start to things like this.
You don't have to re-invent the wheel when you could easily fork Jitsi-meet and harden it/secure it to your needs in the government.
Jitsi is one of my top 5 FOSS projects that are basically already mature enough to be used in a professional setting
It's literally the third word on the github readme of the project linked I'm the post :
Powered by LiveKit
Lovekiy is an open source framework for voice and video conferencing
Just created
In testing for the past year
France has horrible laws for encryption, so how much do you want to bet this thing doesn't have e2ee.
This is an Intel operation
Its FOSS (or I guess FLOSS for this case since they are French lol), meaning it doesn't matter if the people creating the app are "good" or "bad" actors. A "good" actor can always create a fork or host their own instance.
We like to think EU abandoning tech companies will create a new privacy FOSS ecosystem, when in reality they will likely just recreate their own Tech corps like China and US now that they have skin in the game
Zoom has poor encryption. I have seen targeted ads a day after discussing very specific chemical reagents on zoom.
I’m not convinced Zoom doesn’t just sell your contact information to third parties.
Zoom, Teams, Meet, and all the major providers do not have e2ee on by default. It's a paid extra and almost nobody turns it on.
Mega uses e2ee by default, and it cannot be turned off.
Yeah, it was definitely that and not all the web browsing and searching you and your colleague did before, during, and after the meeting, and the meeting notes you sent over gmail/microsoft mail. 🙄
This tool is developed for France's administration, not for the public. They host the servers. So I don't think e2ee is indeed a requirement.
Shouldn't it be the other way around? I'd expect e2ee to be a requirement for anything for the administration even if their laws are a little funky (rules for thee not for me, etc).
- A tool used by a state employer only wouldn't need e2ee, since they hold all the servers.
- The French government has long been trying to make encryption in use by its citizens inspectable by them (the French government)
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End-to-end encryption (coming soon)
I hope they do work on e2ee and they it will indeed come soon.
This wasn't built to be a great service, it was built to be a French controlled one.
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Seems pretty neat. Hopefully it's somewhat simple to compile and set up. It's kind of weird that livekit is VC funded though. Not necessarily the best, since they might have to relicense it to make investors happy at some point.
Look at their list of investors: https://livekit.io/about
The programmability aspect of LiveKit is cool, not that it matters much since this "meet" app is just something built on top of livekit.
Why didn't they pour money on Jitsi?
European, mature, FOSS...
I fear grift is there somewhere.
Also, French engineering has a habit of turning sound concepts into messy overengineerd but underbuilt results.
The development is quite transparent. The team is looking at reduced development and more integration, so instead of "pouring money on a project", they tried various solutions, and picked the "best one".
One criteria was an integration with their internal communication system: Tchap, essentially a Matrix server. The Matrix video call group didn't cut it because it requires ElementX, and apparently there are unresolved issue there (no idea if it's the app itself or due to customization of their Matrix server). They ended up with Visio, that is not a "new" solution: it's based on LiveKit.
My guess would be that its because La Suite tries to replace all of Microsoft Office and having all the moving parts under your organisations control makes it easier to create a fully integrated office suite that offers the same UX throughout. Also Jitsi is owned by 8x8, a US company, which might have factored into the decision to create something new.
Also, French engineering has a habit of turning sound concepts into messy overengineerd but underbuilt results
Any example ?
The Pompidou. They haven't even put the facade on it yet!
It looks neat
Why would they name it "Visio"? That is already the name of a different Microsoft product.
Because that's the French word for it, a visioconférence.
Outlook was trademarked.
An incentive for the users to also drop Microsoft products, starting with Visio?
I wonder what is wrong with jitsi...
It supports e2ee, so the French government can't listen in on the calls
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This is awesome!
But I am confused, isn't github Microsoft though? Why host it there?
Because it's free, convenient, and works. And it's a git project so the code is already distributed, so if Trump has another tantrum and decides the EU can't use any American tech, the deleted PRs and issues would be annoying but we'll still have the code.
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Was worried they'd use it as a walled garden or a monitoring system. MIT license iirc allows forking, so at least if things go downhill, there are ways to mitigate it.
MIT is the “do whatever you want” software license, as long as you include the original copyright and license, and don’t hold the authors liable for damages.
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