Мюнхен это Германия, здесь же речь про Францию, там другое. Не надо обобщать на основании первой пришедшей в голову ассоциации -- это часто не работает.https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19223665
French citizen here. For as long as I can remember, there's been a strong will in the French FLOSS communities to develop local alternatives to the ever-expanding reach of the FAANG/GAFAM, for many reasons. The obvious one being the export of data outside actionable jurisdiction, but it could also be explained by differences in ideology.
As for what else we're doing, there's La Quadrature du Net (LQDN)[1] which took part in the recent Google €50m fine, some projects by concerned citizens to keep a watch on politicians[2] and tracking in mobile apps[3], but one of my favourite things comes from the increasing will to release "OpenData" (public data sets from various sources)[4] to let collectivities, regions and smaller units build tools to solve their local problems.
[1] https://www.laquadrature.net/en
[2] https://projetarcadie.com/ (in French)
[3] https://exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/
[4] https://www.data.gouv.fr/en/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19224170
I work in a French public lab, and the policy here (and in many if not most other public labs) is to produce FOSS based on our research. It has always been more or less a fact, but this is becoming an official policy, AFAIK: make it FOSS unless you have a good reason not to.
Regarding privacy: not my field of expertise, but France is far from paradise here, thanks to the terrorist attacks a few years ago.
Французы -- они вообще довольно националистичны. Германия более прагматична, от неё странно было бы ожидать идей типа Чебурнета, а вот Франция вполне способна на такие фантазии.