Orange inked a deal with IT and consultancy company Capgemini to create a cloud platform designed to meet strict security requirements defined by the French state.

The Bleu venture aims to provide services to public and private institutions dealing with sensitive data throughout France. The pair will also work with Microsoft on the offer.

In a joint statement, the pair claimed Bleu would provide “immunity from all extraterritorial legislation” and “economic independence”.

They added it would meet national rules around data transfer and provide full control of cloud-based applications from isolated infrastructure and data centres located within France.

“These data centres will therefore be strictly separated from Microsoft’s global data centre infrastructure, which guarantees operational autonomy,” the partners added, noting they expect the product to achieve the “Cloud de Confiance” security designation.

Orange CEO Stephane Richard said the partners would “create a trusted-cloud solution for our existing and future B2B customers and public organisations that will provide a wide-range of services, and in particular Microsoft 365, from within a sovereign infrastructure”.