EU Parliament to switch to French search engine from Google in tech sovereignty push

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS, June 3 (Reuters) - The European Parliament will switch to French search engine Qwant from Google, it said on Wednesday, underscoring Europe's push to reduce its reliance on U.S. technology in favour of local alternatives.

The European Commission will later on Wednesday announce measures on chips, cloud computing services and AI as part of its "Buy and Use European" drive.

"From 4 June 2026, Qwant will become the default search engine on the European Parliament's Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox browsers," a Parliament spokesperson said in an email.

The change will be applied automatically, though users will still be able to select alternative search engines.

"It is part of a larger framework of actions aimed at reducing EP reliance on non-EU digital tools and promoting European-based, privacy-focused services," the spokesperson said.

The Parliament has 720 lawmakers, along with thousands of assistants and administrative staff. Euractiv first reported the switch.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee. Editing by Mark Potter)