Seems Merz doesn't understand the difference between data-residency and data-sovereignty. Nor does he understand the scope of Trump's 2017 CLOUD act, which expressly states any data in any datacenter that is the property of a US corporation, regardless of where it physically resides in the world, can ultimately be accessed by US statecraft, on demand.
There is no 'data sovereignty' with GAFAM. Ever.
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The French gov learned that lesson in July last year, when the director of public and legal affairs for Microsoft France, Anton Carniaux, was asked to testify before the French Senate whether he could guarantee that the data of French citizens stored in Microsoft's Azure servers, **in France**, is safe from access by US statecraft.
He replied that he cannot.
https://www.theregister.com/off-prem/2025/07/25/microsoft-exec-admits-it-cannot-guarantee-data-sovereignty/458553
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Microsoft admits it 'cannot guarantee' data sovereignty