---
sheet_format: 1.0
id: 2026-01-cloud-mercato-souverainete
title: "La définition même du cloud souverain"
title_en: "The very definition of sovereign cloud"
speaker: Erwan Rougeux
with: [Anthony Monthe (Cloud Mercato, host), Jérôme (co-host; surname unclear in captions)]
date: 2026-01-17
event: "Cloud Mercato"
place: "online / studio"
format: interview
language: fr
duration: "2:12:34"
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk
slides: null
topics: [digital sovereignty, paas, clever cloud, africa, international expansion, kubernetes, cloud act, strategic autonomy]
source: "Summary written by Claude (AI) from the YouTube auto-caption transcript, with statements attributed to Erwan by local identification of his voice only (other speakers are not identified). Not a verbatim transcript; check the recording before quoting."
review: spot-checked
review_date: 2026-10-18
---

# La définition même du cloud souverain

**In one sentence:** In a long interview on Cloud Mercato's podcast "The Cloud Screener", Erwan Rougeux explains what PaaS is for, how he sees sovereign cloud, and why Clever Cloud goes international through local partners, local currency and local talent.

## TL;DR
Anthony Monthe and his co-host Jérôme talk with Erwan Rougeux, VP International Growth at Clever Cloud, for over two hours. Erwan argues that a PaaS lets teams stop maintaining machines and concentrate on their product. He says trust comes from European law (GDPR), end-to-end encryption and staying out of reach of US extraterritorial laws. For him, sovereignty is more than where the data sits: when Clever Cloud works abroad, it wants to be paid in local currency, reinvest the money in the country and build products with local partners. The episode also covers a role-play "Cloud Client Simulator", Clever Cloud's two kinds of customers, Africa as "the next big thing", what he asks of the French state, and Kubernetes versus Clever Cloud.

## Erwan's key points
- Erwan argues that the value of a PaaS is not having to manage an OS, its updates, backups or SSH keys, so teams can focus on their intellectual property and their market. He compares it to leasing a car rather than keeping a mechanic on staff.
- He says that at his previous job (Mission laïque française), keeping a self-built Docker-based PaaS running took about 2.5 FTE and nearly €350,000 a year, and that moving to Clever Cloud freed those people for more valuable work.
- He presents GDPR as a constraint but also a pledge of trust. He says customer data on Clever Cloud is encrypted end to end and cannot be read without the customer's keys, and he questions the "sovereign" offers of US hyperscalers because of the CLOUD Act. He adds a minimal OS (Exherbo, which Clever Cloud contributes to) with binaries compiled in-house and checked by signatures.
- He defines sovereignty more broadly than data location: customers abroad should pay in local currency, and the money should stay in the country to hire engineers and build R&D there. He prefers the term "strategic autonomy".
- His international model is to find a local partner who shares the vision and say "take the technology, help me make it a product for your market", followed by startup programmes. In his words, Clever Cloud is "a catalyst", not a seller pushing its tech.
- He sees two kinds of Clever Cloud customers: developers who adopt it bottom-up, and, for the past 3–4 years, organisations driven by data sovereignty, sometimes because shareholders or clients ask for it.
- He considers his proudest achievement to be launching Clever Cloud's international project in Africa (Côte d'Ivoire, Morocco). He wants to "set the bar higher" with local currency, partnerships and money that stays in the country.
- He asks the French state and its embassies to back SMEs and mid-sized companies abroad, not only CAC 40 firms. Often an institutional "relay" would be enough, without any money. He also argues for a French "Small Business Act": if even 10% of what the state spends with Google, Microsoft and AWS went to providers like OVHcloud or Clever Cloud, they would grow much faster, without cutting the US contracts.
- He calls AI "neither intelligent nor artificial", but a tool that saves time; he says he is back to coding through "vibe coding". He expects countries such as Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand and sub-Saharan Africa to accelerate with it, with startups of two or three people worth millions.
- On Kubernetes, he says he is a fan and runs his own cluster at home for 200+ self-hosted services. But he argues that "Kubernetes is software to build a cluster, Clever Cloud is software to do cloud", and that teams should choose the tool for the need, not the buzzword.

## Outline
- [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=0s) Anthony opens the show with co-host Jérôme and tells how he locked himself out of his own server by changing its shell.
- [6:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=361s) Anthony draws lessons from it, calls PaaS the heir of web hosting, and introduces Erwan.
- [7:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=453s) Erwan on the value of PaaS: with IaaS you still manage a machine. He compares it to leasing versus owning a car.
- [10:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=610s) "Deploy fast or die". He uses WhatsApp's first version as proof that being first to market matters more than polish.
- [12:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=728s) The cost of the self-built PaaS at his former association, and what moving to Clever Cloud changed.
- [13:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=799s) Trust: how a PaaS can guarantee your data stays yours. GDPR, end-to-end encryption, the CLOUD Act and hyperscalers' "sovereign" offers.
- [15:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=939s) Clever Cloud's security model: a minimal OS (Exherbo), signed in-house builds, VMs tailored to each runtime, `clever ssh`, per-second billing.
- [17:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=1077s) Erwan introduces himself: VP International Growth for a year and a half, over ten years as CIO of Mission laïque française, science studies, white-hat hacking.
- [20:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=1218s) He met Clever Cloud's CEO on a TGV on a strike day. He talks about the 1990s promise of the internet and a "third way": a humanist internet carried by European values.
- [24:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=1452s) Europe as a bridge between China, the US and Africa. African demographics (he gives figures from memory), and why sovereignty also means local currency.
- [27:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=1639s) The partner model: a technology is not a product. AI engineers in Kazakhstan, West African mobile developers building a mobile web version of Clever Cloud, people coding on their phones in Dubai.
- [31:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=1875s) Startup and hackerspace programmes, being a catalyst for an ecosystem, and technological leapfrogging.
- [33:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=2014s) What Clever Cloud is: about a hundred people with roughly 75% in R&D, founded by video-game developers, "a friendly DevOps" for your organisation. Billing per business unit and the Clever Tools CLI.
- [38:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=2321s) Jérôme asks why he still travels in a full-remote world. Erwan answers that business rests on human trust, that he builds "half of the bridge", and talks about hospitality in Kazakhstan.
- [45:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=2714s) His favourite place outside France: Abidjan and its welcome ("Akwaba").
- [48:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=2932s) The future of cloud is "all around the world". He covers Africa's data-centre gap, Morocco's planned 500 MW data centre and AI as a time-saver.
- [55:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=3304s) The H-1B visa changes, Trump's protectionism, dependence on Taiwan for chips, and lessons from Covid.
- [59:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=3586s) Cloud Client Simulator, stage 1: "Jean-Claude", a WordPress reseller spread across many providers. Erwan covers PHP/FrankenPHP runtimes, migration, scripting with Clever Tools, and a customer who automated site creation through CI/CD.
- [1:05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=3900s) Stage 2: "Pierre-Cloud", an old-school sysadmin who insists on SSH. Erwan explains micro-VMs with SSH but no persistence and no full root, and that he treats them like a Docker runtime. From [1:10:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=4211s) he tells how, in Abidjan, an AI coding agent deployed a Rust app to Clever Cloud by reading the logs, while he and the CTO watched.
- [1:12:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=4378s) Stage 3: "Louis-Cloud", a carpenter with a no-code app. Erwan explains pushing code from the console, two scaling sliders and a price shown upfront (from about €3.50 to €350 a month). Free credit for new accounts (€20) is mentioned in a passage where the voices are mixed, likely Erwan.
- [1:20:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=4824s) Customer types: developers and sovereignty-driven buyers. He contrasts a five-minute Nextcloud outage he had to apologise for with a day-long Google outage that was shrugged off, and gives "a bit over 4,000" customers from memory.
- [1:28:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=5317s) He says the Trump administration has made the sovereignty argument easier ("a salesman at the White House"). His proudest achievement: the Africa project, Morocco's vision, and Morocco compared with South Korea.
- [1:43:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=6201s) "Something you never dared say": France and Europe should get better organised and back SMEs abroad, not only the CAC 40. He mentions Business France, VivaTech and ambassadors who overlook small firms. After the co-host agrees, Erwan moves to public procurement: multi-million contracts signed with US firms, a "Small Business Act" on the US model, and 10% of state cloud spending going to European providers.
- [1:54:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=6875s) Is Clever Cloud a competitor to managed Kubernetes? His homelab, Clever Cloud's managed Kubernetes with etcd rebuilt on FoundationDB, a five-month Rancher-to-EKS migration, on-premise/edge/air-gapped deployments, a COBOL-as-a-service project.
- [2:08:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=7726s) Closing message: think multiculturalism, drop your biases, build your half of the cultural bridge.

## Notable quotes
> "Elle est où la souveraineté si je te prends ton argent et que je la sors du pays ? Elle est nulle part." — Erwan Rougeux, [26:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=1569s)
*"Where is the sovereignty if I take your money and move it out of the country? Nowhere."*

> "Prends-la, on travaille ensemble, parce qu'avoir une technologie, ça fait pas un produit." — Erwan Rougeux, [28:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=1686s)
*"Take it, let's work together, because having a technology doesn't make a product."*

> "Clever Cloud, c'est ni plus ni moins qu'un gentil DevOps pour ta structure." — Erwan Rougeux, [35:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=2134s)
*"Clever Cloud is nothing more or less than a friendly DevOps for your organisation."*

> "Moi, je fais que la moitié du pont. C'est aux autres en face de faire l'autre moitié du pont." — Erwan Rougeux, [39:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=2389s)
*"I only build half of the bridge. It's up to the people on the other side to build the other half."*

> "Kubernetes est le logiciel qui te permet de monter un cluster. Là où Clever Cloud est le logiciel qui va te permettre de faire du cloud." — Erwan Rougeux, [2:00:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=7232s)
*"Kubernetes is the software that lets you build a cluster, whereas Clever Cloud is the software that lets you do cloud."*

## Questions this answers
**Q: How does Erwan Rougeux define a sovereign cloud?**
A: For him, hosting data in the country is not enough. Sovereignty also means not being exposed to extraterritorial laws, being paid in local currency, and reinvesting the money locally in engineers and R&D. He prefers the term "strategic autonomy", meaning a sovereignty that protects data so you can open up to others rather than close in ([26:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=1569s), [1:22:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=4939s), [1:27:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=5248s)).

**Q: Are AWS or Google "sovereign cloud" offers in France really sovereign, according to Erwan Rougeux?**
A: He doubts it. Even with data hosted in France, he says, the US CLOUD Act still allows extraterritorial access, and the current geopolitical climate makes that a real risk ([14:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=894s)).

**Q: Why use a PaaS like Clever Cloud instead of IaaS or VPS?**
A: Erwan argues that IaaS still leaves you running an OS, updates and backups, while a PaaS lets you focus on your product and get to market fast. He cites his former association, where a home-made PaaS cost about 2.5 FTE and nearly €350k a year ([7:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=475s), [12:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=728s)).

**Q: How does Clever Cloud expand internationally, for example in Africa?**
A: Erwan says Clever Cloud finds local partners who share its vision, often infrastructure players with an existing client base, and builds a product for their market together. It then runs startup programmes. He wants to be paid in local currency and keep the money in the country. Côte d'Ivoire and Morocco are the first markets he names ([27:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=1639s), [31:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=1899s), [1:31:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=5481s)).

**Q: Why does Erwan Rougeux think Africa is "the next big thing" for cloud?**
A: He points to a young, fast-growing population, strong developer communities, mobile-first habits such as mobile money, new data centres (Morocco's planned 500 MW site) and pan-African cooperation. In his view, Africa has a data-centre gap that is being closed ([50:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=3001s), [1:35:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=5741s), [1:36:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=5812s)).

**Q: Can you still SSH into your app on Clever Cloud?**
A: Yes. Erwan explains that apps run in micro-VMs reachable over SSH and FTP. Local changes do not persist after a restart, as with a container, and you do not get full root. He advises against live hotfixes in production, while admitting everyone does it ([1:06:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=3996s), [1:07:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=4020s)).

**Q: Is Clever Cloud a competitor to Kubernetes services like EKS or AKS?**
A: Only partly, says Erwan. Kubernetes builds clusters, while Clever Cloud provides cloud services such as managed databases and add-ons that are wired together automatically. Clever Cloud also offers managed Kubernetes. He recalls a five-month migration from Rancher to EKS to show how hard moving between Kubernetes setups can be ([1:55:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=6921s), [2:03:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=7416s)).

**Q: What does Erwan Rougeux want from the French government for tech exports?**
A: He wants the state, its ministries and its embassies to recognise and back SMEs and mid-sized tech companies abroad, not only the CAC 40. He says sometimes all it takes is an institutional endorsement, such as an email saying the French state backs an initiative. He also suggests a French "Small Business Act" that would steer part of public spending to smaller and European suppliers ([1:43:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=6224s), [1:48:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=6523s), [1:50:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lti3l_cKYlk&t=6640s)).

## Mentioned
Clever Cloud, Cloud Mercato, Mission laïque française, Quentin Adam, Steven Le Roux, Horacio Gonzalez, Exherbo, Clever Tools, FrankenPHP, WordPress, Kubernetes, Rancher, Amazon EKS, AKS, GKE, Helm, etcd, FoundationDB, Docker, Nextcloud, Grafana, OVHcloud, Scaleway, AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, CrowdStrike, WhatsApp, DeepSeek, Mistral AI, ChatGPT, GPT-5, Claude Code, Windsurf, MCP, llms.txt, n8n, GDPR, CLOUD Act, FISA, HDS, H-1B visas, Donald Trump, Jean-Noël Barrot, Laurent Saint-Martin, Business France, VivaTech, Devoxx, Station F, Smart Africa, Africa Data Protection, Africa Cup of Nations, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, Morocco, Senegal, Mali, Kazakhstan, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, South Korea, Taiwan