In the presence of Lieutenant General Benoît Durieux, Director of the IHEDN and Higher Military Education (EMS), who came to give a welcome speech, the participants, who were mainly from the Digital Sovereignty and Cybersecurity major at the IHEDN National Session attended a round-table discussion on Wednesday 13 April focusing on the collective work Digital sovereignty: an attempt to reclaim it.
Co-organised by the Cyber and Digital Sovereignty Chair - IHEDN, the’AGORA 41, ANSSI think tank, and the Data circle, the «Reconquering Digital Sovereignty» round table featured the following speakers Lieutenant General Bernard de Courrèges d'Ustou, Inspecteur Général des Finances and former Director of the IHEDN, and to Matthieu Bourgeois, a lawyer specialising in digital and communications law, Vice-Chairman of the Cercle de la donnée and a member of AGORA 41.
After outlining the reasons that led AGORA 41 and the Cercle de la donnée to publish this essay, the speakers presented the conclusions of this well-documented work and set out their proposals in 3 parts:
- Economic: (1) stimulate digital investment (i) by extending the IR-PME tax exemption scheme (ii) and the research tax credit (CIR), and (iii) by reforming property tax; (2) extend merger control by adding, for example, an alternative criterion to sales, corresponding to market share; (3) create regulated professions for the digital sector such as «digital auditor» or «algorithm auditor».
- Education and research: (4) set up an investment fund to support basic research and create mechanisms to publicise and promote this basic research; (5) publish a digital civics booklet for people of different ages, launched by means of a vast communication campaign.
- Legal and digital aspects: (6) impose conditions on all operations involving certain essential data, so that they are subject only to European texts to the exclusion of any other foreign legislation; (7) assign the steering of e-governance to a dedicated body coordinated and directed at the highest level of government.
The presentation was followed by a discussion with the audience.
General Marc Watin-Augouard, Head of the Digital Sovereignty and Cybersecurity major at the IHEDN National Session, brought the event to a close.
