Paris (AFP)

The French search engine Qwant will now be the search engine installed by default in French administrations, we learned from Dinum, the interdepartmental direction of digital.

Nadi Bou Hanna, the interdepartmental director of digital, this week sent a note to the IT managers of the various ministries, asking them to install Qwant by default on the administration's computers and smartphones.

Secretary of State for Digital Cédric O had promised Qwant last May this installation by default, which should help the French search engine to increase its market share which remains very low.

But according to concordant sources, the government has retained its final decision pending the obtaining of assurances on the sustainability of the business, threatened by insufficient commercial results.

These assurances have just been obtained. Qwant announced Thursday that it will be recapitalized by Caisse des Dépôts (CDC) and Axel Springer, two of its longtime shareholders.

Eric Leandri, the historic manager and major shareholder of Qwant, has resigned from his executive functions, leaving the controls to a team made up of Jean-Claude Ghinozzi, the new reigning boss of Qwant, and Antonine Troesch, a manager of the Caisse des depots appointed chairman of the Qwant governance board.

Before receiving all the green lights from the administration, Qwant's algorithms and code were also audited under the leadership of the interdepartmental digital directorate (Dinum), with the reinforcement in particular of Anssi (guardian of computer security French) and the Cnil (guardian of Internet users' privacy).

These audits were "conclusive" in favor of Qwant, Nadi Bou Hanna told AFP.

The criteria examined were notably "Qwant's own capacity for web indexing" (ie the efficiency of search engine algorithms) and "the absence of collection of personal data from public officials ", according to Mr. Bou Hanna.

Qwant will be installed by default on the computers and smartphones of officials, but they can change this choice and use another search engine if they wish, he said.

© 2020 AFP