2023-08-04 00:57:44
The computer group Atos in crisis must be “absolutely kept under the French bosom”, estimated 82 senators and deputies Les Républicains in a forum published on Thursday.
MEPs are concerned about the sale to the Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky of the historic activities of Atos and its acquisition of a stake in the very sensitive cybersecurity and computer activities now housed in the Eviden entity, brought to be spun off from Atos.
The supercomputers, resulting from the activity of Bull taken over by Atos, are essential to the simulations of nuclear tests which are used for the development of atomic weapons and therefore for the credibility of French deterrence, they recall in a column published on the Figaro website.
“However, this capacity maintained at the best world level is today greatly threatened by the deep crisis affecting Atos”, they believe, now judging “possible, in theory, to access France’s strategic computing capacities through ‘a backdoor: that of a low-cost takeover bid’.
“A Wolf in the Sheepfold”
The authors of the forum, signed in particular by Bruno Retailleau and the president and vice-president of the Senate Defense Committee, Christian Cambon and Cédric Perrin, therefore call for “protecting these strategic assets at all costs”.
“The hypothesis of seeing such a powerful foreign player come close to our ultra-sensitive military capabilities deserves our full attention, especially since he is not familiar with the field of ICT” (information technologies and communication), they warn.
According to them, “the financial situation of Atos is today such that it is no longer so certain that Evidian (renamed Eviden) will be protected”.
With Daniel Kretinsky, “we bring the wolf into the sheepfold,” said Senator Cédric Perrin, who regrets that a French offer carried by Astek Development and Chapsvision, is “absolutely not considered”.
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