Question 16481 — digital

Summary

Mr. Jérôme End questions the Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industrial, Energy and Digital Sovereignty on the practices of PC SOFT since its acquisition by Two Squared France II and on the potential consequences for the country from an economic and security point of view. The French company PC SOFT based in Montpellier was bought at the end of 2024 by a European group, Two Squared France II, which itself belongs to two Canadian companies: Constellation Software Inc and its subsidiary Volaris Group, specializing in the acquisition of software publishing companies. PC SOFT notably develops WinDev, WebDev and WinDev Mobile software, used by thousands of VSEs, SMEs, publishers and IT services, which sometimes work in strategic sectors for our country. With the takeover, the activities of these structures therefore came under the control of Two Squared France II. This change has important consequences at the economic level. In fact, the company that bought PC SOFT is converting perpetual licenses into recurring subscriptions and gradually increasing prices. This policy is difficult to bear for many companies, a certain number of which will certainly have to file for bankruptcy in the weeks or months to come. Unfortunately, a large number of them cannot get rid of their contracts, because in the case of WinDev, the proprietary programming language at the heart of PC SOFT tools, WLanguage, does not exist anywhere else. This could also constitute an abuse of a dominant position and go against European laws. In addition to the exorbitant cost of the new development platform, the company also provides an annual royalty on the module allowing applications created by developers and deployed to end customers to operate. PC SOFT will thus invoice its customers' customers with its new model. Given the fact that these end customers are not contractually linked to PC SOFT, it is legitimate to question the legality of this practice. However, the consequences of PC SOFT practices can also be significant national security point of view. Indeed, many companies or administrations using software made in WinDev act in particularly strategic areas for the country. Among the users, we find for example the Ministry of National Education, the Paris Hospitals, certain CPAMs, companies working in air traffic control, defense, etc. On spaces promoting new releases of Windev, large companies with particularly sensitive activities are mentioned, such as Safran, Thalès, Dassault Aviation, Aéroports de Paris, Ariane Espace, etc. He asks that the competent services be contacted urgently and that an investigation be carried out to find out how many strategic structures use this software and what would be the potential consequences for the country if they could no longer be there. recourse, in particular due to a financial burden which would become too significant, especially since it is essential to avoid sudden cessations of activity in sectors affecting in particular the health or safety of fellow citizens.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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