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> The french state is constantly broke

I'm curious as to why you'd say that and generalize for contractor work. Just as an example, Thales has landed multiple (and sometimes in a shady manner it seems) juicy contracts with the french government. Just looking it up quickly, you can find a 263 millions euros contract for radios for example. [0]

Mismanaged, I wouldn't argue, but it sure spends a lot and is definitely not broke.

[0]. (in French) https://www.tradingsat.com/thales-FR0000121329/actualites/th...



Yeah, the idea that the French government can't pay for IT seems really odd to me. They can definitely pull out the big contracts. It's just a sector with a lot of entrenched interests and regulatory capture.


I personally think on the contrary that the French overspends too much and get kinda milked by big IT companies such as Thales that bank on the fact that no-one on the administration side can evaluate how much the work they're requesting actually costs.


Yeah, mismanagement of these large projects is more of an issue than a lack of budget.




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