France pledges €655M for AI after Anthropic ban rattles allies

The Trump administration's abrupt shutdown of Anthropic's most advanced AI models has set off a wave of urgent responses from allied governments, with leaders in Europe and Canada warning that reliance on U.S. artificial intelligence exposes them to unilateral access revocations without recourse.

On Saturday, June 13, the U.S. Commerce Department issued an export control directive ordering Anthropic to suspend all access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models by any foreign national, "whether inside or outside the United States," citing national security concerns. The company said it was forced to "abruptly disable" the models for all customers to comply. The shutdown affected not only overseas clients but also Anthropic's own international staff working in its San Francisco offices.youtube+3

Europe Moves Toward Sovereign Alternatives

The fallout reached European capitals within hours. Thomas Regnier, a spokesperson for the European Commission, said the incident "further emphasizes the necessity for Europe to attain technological sovereignty". Officials pointed to the Commission's European Technological Sovereignty Package, unveiled on June 3, as newly vindicated. The package includes the Cloud and AI Development Act, which would require governments to store critical data on EU-owned cloud services and conduct mandatory sovereignty risk assessments of their providers.williamfry+3

In France, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced on Monday an additional €655 million for artificial intelligence, headlined by a sovereign conversational assistant for roughly one million state employees, powered by domestic startup Mistral AI. The government also said it would replace Palantir ↗ 2.84% tools at the domestic intelligence agency with a local alternative.thenextweb+1

Canada Sounds the Alarm

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, speaking on Sunday from the sidelines of a summit in Ireland, warned of the risks of depending on a small number of American AI providers. Carney had already launched Canada's "AI for All" national strategy on June 4, which commits to building sovereign compute infrastructure, a public AI supercomputer, and Canadian-owned data centers to ensure the country's researchers and institutions can operate on Canadian terms.apnews+2

A Broader Reckoning

The Anthropic episode marks the second major confrontation between the company and the Trump administration this year. In February, President Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic technology after the company refused to permit unrestricted military applications of its AI. A federal judge temporarily blocked parts of that ban in March.npr+1

Analysts say the incident illustrates a broader pattern in which advanced AI is treated as a strategic national asset subject to political control. The European Commission's proposed legislation, if adopted, would effectively bar U.S.-controlled providers from handling the most sensitive government workloads — a shift that could reshape the global cloud and AI market for years to come.gisreportsonline+1