Logistics is a strategic pillar of the French economy. Today, performance and industrial independence are largely played out in software and systems.
Logistics is a strategic asset in the same way as production tools. In France, it represents 7% of the national GDP (2023), supported by 150,000 companies, generating €200 billion, and 1.8M jobs. It is at the heart of national economic sovereignty, as the CILOG report specifies: “having agile and resilient supply chains is essential in a context of health, climate and geopolitical crises, to limit the risks of supply or distribution disruptions”. An agile and resilient warehouse is an industrial tool in its own right which today concentrates heavy investments, robotic equipment and innovative systems. It also includes complex information systems and real-time data flows. Are we therefore ready to recognize that it is in the software that controls infrastructures that a decisive part of French and European industrial independence is played out?
When intralogistics relocates
It has long been believed that if the factory could leave, intralogistics would remain local. This belief proved fragile. Platforms like Shein have shown that it is possible to prepare orders in Asia and ship directly by air to European consumers. Intralogistics, once anchored in the territories, can also be delocalized on a large scale.
The consequences go beyond just the commercial question. Less local logistics activity means less added value, fewer jobs, less control over standards and flows. Added to this is an obvious environmental inconsistency when millions of packages cross the planet by air to satisfy a minimum price logic.
The dependence is not immediately visible. It takes hold gradually, as local ecosystems become fragile.
The equipment battle: price versus rule
The tension is just as strong on equipment, particularly in mobile robotics. The price differences between Asian and European solutions are spectacular. They can be explained by differences in cost structures, but also by offensive industrial policies.
Europe has already experienced this type of dropout in other sectors. The question is not only about knowing how to produce efficient machines; it consists of preserving an industrial base capable of lasting. But reducing sovereignty to the manufacturing of equipment alone would be an analytical error. The real dividing line lies elsewhere.
The real battlefield: software
In an automated warehouse, equipment is just the tip of the iceberg. What makes everything work, what synchronizes the robots, optimizes routes, manages priorities, secures data and manages operations, is the software. A robot without software is an isolated machine. A warehouse without a sovereign system is dependent infrastructure.
This is where a decisive part of industrial sovereignty comes into play.
Europe maintains a real lead in flow control and warehouse management systems European intralogistics players illustrate this ability to combine technological excellence and software intelligence. European know-how lies in controlled complexity, in the fine orchestration of operations, in the ability to integrate and create dialogue between heterogeneous systems.
Software independence: an architectural choice, not a slogan
Software independence cannot be decreed. It is being built. It begins with mastery of the critical building blocks: cloud hosting, choice of publishers, tools used to develop and maintain software.
In the context of embedded computing, for example for robots, or connected objects (IoT), the internal design of electronic cards, the selection of European components, the detailed understanding of the system layers are essential subjects. Each uncontrolled technical dependency becomes a potential risk.
It continues in the choices of IT architecture (databases, operating systems or AI), using dominant market solutions is not a problem in itself; on the other hand, becoming captive can constitute a major risk. The challenge consists of designing systems capable of switching, migrating and adapting without interruption of activity.
The use of open source bricks (PostgreSQL, Linux, etc.) can represent a strategy. Not out of ideology, but out of pragmatism: open source offers transparency, portability and a capacity for appropriation. It reduces the risk of exclusive dependence on one supplier. On the other hand, it has its drawbacks in terms of support, you must take them into account in your strategy.
The question of the cloud is just as strategic. Relying on European hosts makes it possible to maintain legal and political coherence between data, infrastructure and the regulatory framework. In an unstable geopolitical context, the location and control of data become elements of sovereignty in their own right.
Artificial intelligence adds another layer to this equation. Generative tools are attractive with their apparent power, but they raise questions of reliability, data control, security and technological dependence. Many AI tools on the market today are non-European and pose a risk of data leaks.
In an industrial environment, strategy errors are not trivial: they can jeopardize an entire chain. The emergence of European players opens up credible prospects. Supporting and integrating these solutions helps build a coherent technological chain, from data to operational management.
Europe faced with its strategic choice
Europe has the engineers, research centers, innovative companies and financial capacity necessary to succeed in its industrial reconquest. What is most often lacking is strategic alignment and the ability to advocate for a level playing field.
The warehouse concentrates all these tensions: globalization of flows, pressure on prices, technological dependence, environmental and social issues.
European industrial sovereignty will not be won only in factories or in political speeches. It will be built in the software architectures that manage our flows, in the control of our data, in the capacity not to be captive to non-European technologies.
