Commercial launch of Bleu, “trustworthy cloud” provided by Orange, Capgemini and Microsoft

On January 15, 2024, Capgemini and Orange announced the commercial launch of Bleu, their “trustworthy cloud” service built on Microsoft technology. Bleu is a joint venture registered in France; in 2023, the company received the go-ahead from European authorities to launch. The new cloud platform should be operational at the end of 2024, which leaves Orange and Capgemini a year to prepare the migration of future customers.

Bleu intends on providing “a cloud solution based on Microsoft services while fully complying with French authorities within ‘trustworthy cloud’ parameters,” reminds Christel Heydemann, CEO of Orange. The three partners are aiming for ANSSI’s SecNumCloud 3.2 certification in 2025.

The goal of Bleu is to “meet the specific cloud needs of the French government, public agencies, hospitals, local authorities and operators of essential services (OES), by allowing them to use Microsoft 365 services and Microsoft Azure,” outlines the press release.

The SecNumCloud 3.2 certification sets drastic norms in terms of sovereignty, including a guarantee against foreign, particularly US, legal extraterritoriality. ANSSI has not confirmed whether joint ventures with US companies could be granted this precious status.