“The tech adoption in Europe is a serious and very, very structural problem,” warned Alex Karp at the World Economic Forum in January 2026. Europe’s laggardness and weakness is not a new topic for Palantir’s CEO’s (he talks about it, for example, in his 2025 essay The Technological Republic). According to him, the Old Continent is over-regulated and does not invest enough in its defense or in the AI race.

Karp’s criticism is often voiced by the Trump administration and in Silicon Valley, as well as by European leaders themselves. For him, it does not only reflect a political view, but also commercial interests. Palantir is actively seeking to expand its operations in Europe, whether with governments or large corporations. By capitalizing on crises and combining lobbying, networking, and revolving doors, the multinational has managed to carve out a place for itself in the European market despite its controversial reputation. Neither its ties to the CIA and the U.S. military, nor its role in hunting migrants in the United States, nor its close partnership with the Israeli government seem to deter European leaders. Indeed, many have succumbed to the fascination with the American giant’s software and its power to process and interpret massive datasets (read the first part of this investigation).

From France’s DGSI to Swiss media

According to a Euractiv, in August 2025, Palantir’s software was being used by private companies in thirteen European Union (EU) countries, and by public entities in ten of them. This includes France, as the DGSI, the domestic intelligence service, has been using Palantir’s Gotham software since 2015. Other European intelligence agencies use the company’s technologies, Denmark in particular. Several German police forces have also adopted them. Europol, the EU agency tasked with combating international crime and terrorism, used Palantir solutions from 2016 to 2021. Greece and the Netherlands used it as part of their Covid response. The Spanish military intelligence has been using Palantir since 2022, and in 2025, the British Ministry of Defense signed a £240 million contract with the US firm.

In Switzerland, as revealed by an investigation by Republik magazine—which currently offers the best look into Palantir’s business practices—the company courted authorities for seven years, without success, to secure similar contracts. But it was more fortunate in the country’s private sector, with companies like Novartis. Ringier, one of the largest Swiss media groups, also partnered with Palantir in 2018. Today, the American company’s Foundry and AIP (Artificial Intelligence Platform) platforms are used in Ringier’s newsrooms to “harness the potential of data to better serve and inform readers”. In 2021, Ringier stated that 85% of its journalists checked Foundry every day, as the platform provides useful information to help them decide what content to publish. Republik also revealed that Palantir’s executive vice president served on Ringier’s board of directors, and that Palantir was a member of DigitalSwitzerland, a tech promotion organization founded by Ringier’s CEO.

Amundi, the second-largest European investor in Palantir

Palantir’s technologies are used by many other companies in Europe, including French firms such as Airbus, Stellantis, Axa, Société Générale, and Engie. The private sector does not seem particularly concerned about Palantir’s controversial reputation, and neither do investors. According to an investigation published last March, between 2024 and 2025, over a hundred major European banks, asset managers, insurers, and pension funds increased their total holdings of Palantir shares by nearly 70%. By the end of 2025, Amundi, a French asset manager and subsidiary of Crédit Agricole, was the second-largest European investor in Palantir behind Norges Bank, with shares valued at nearly $3 billion. BNP Paribas is also among the top 20 Palantir investors, while Natixis ranks further down the list.

When contacted for this investigation, Amundi replied that it “had no comment to make on this matter.” Yet its 2024 Engagement Report affirms that “failing to respect human rights can, and should, have negative financial and reputational consequences for companies. ” And its general investment policy states: “As a responsible asset manager, we assess how investees take human rights into account and address human rights abuses in their operations.”

In reality, Palantir has long been the subject of concerns. In 2020, Amnesty International concluded that the company was not exercising due diligence in its contracts with ICE, and that it was highly likely that its technology was contributing to human rights violations by facilitating operations targeting migrants or asylum seekers. The NGO noted that in the past, ICE had already used Palantir’s technology to carry out massive raids and separate families. With the intensification of ICE operations during Donald Trump’s second term, these risks have only increased.

Palantir’s ties to ICE or to Israel, as well as the wars waged by the United States using its Maven software, have, however, begun to worry some investors. In October 2024, Storebrand, one of Norway’s leading asset managers, divested from Palantir, citing the risk of violation of international humanitarian law and human rights in Israel. The Dutch pension fund Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP did the same in April 2026.

Dependency and data protection

For governments, sovereignty is a cause for concern —especially when the US company’s software is used to process data related to sovereign functions. In March 2026, when questioned by the parliamentary inquiry committee on France’s dependency on the DGSI’s contract with Palantir, Henri Verdier, France’s former digital ambassador, replied: “I’ve always thought it was a mistake.” He went on to highlight the dependency these technologies create on a foreign company : “Palantir allows you to store a hundred times more data than before and makes itself indispensable. If you disagree over a commercial dispute or change in pricing structure, the company can threaten to cut you off from services that you are no longer able to provide on your own.” Palantir software does more than just process information: it uses the information to draw conclusions and suggest actions. Therefore, using these technologies means decision-making depends on algorithms controlled by the US company. Including when it comes to choosing targets to strike or people to monitor.

Palantir maintains that the data remains in the hands of its clients, that it does not directly host data (using other operators’ clouds), that sensitive data can be encrypted and stored in isolated data centers, and that access is monitored and traceable. This line of defense is far from faultless. For example, Palantir engineers may have access to customer data when they install the systems. Last May, the Financial Times revealed that British authorities had granted the US company unrestricted access to some of their patient data—before it was anonymized—in order to set up an integrated platform for the NHS, the National Health Service. The media outlet The Nerve published testimonies from employees of the Ministry of Defense expressing concern that, even though Palantir does not have access to confidential information, by combining its data, the company could be able to deduce classified information, such as the location of a nuclear submarine.

In 2024, Republik published a Swiss Army assessment report that ruled out the use of Palantir software, particularly due to the risks of data leaks to the United States and the dependence on foreign expertise that it would create. The American company did not seem to appreciate this very much, as it immediately filed a lawsuit against the Swiss media outlet.

“Bad times are good for us”

None of this prevented NATO, from choosing Palantir’s Maven software in March 2025 for its Allied Command Operations (ACO), which plans and carries out their operations. The contract was signed in six months as ACO stated that it “suffered from a capability gap,” explained French army officer Dominique Luzeaux to the National Assembly. This choice is presented as not meant to be permanent, but in their report on France’s military dependencies, MPs François Cormier-Bouligeon and Aurélien Saintoul expressed concern : “American technologies could become widespread and shape all procedures in the name of interoperability, thereby hindering the development of sovereign technologies.” European military staff, accustomed to using the software within the NATO framework, might find it easier to expand its use rather than develop a home-grown solution.

“It’s true that bad times are good for us,” Alex Karp acknowledged in an interview with Le Nouvel Obs in 2023. The company was founded in the wake of 9/11 in the United States. In France, the DGSI decided to use Palantir’s Gotham platform following the shock of the 2015 attacks. “We need to acquire this big data immediately. (...) The smallest search allows us to retrieve thousands of data points. So we need big data technologies to meet our needs immediately,” explained Patrick Calvar, managing director of the intelligence agency, at the time. The contract was signed in conditions of urgency in 2016, and has been renewed several times over the years.

More recently, Palantir has become involved in the war in Ukraine. “Starting in 2022, Palantir offered a variety of services, ranging from target detection, intelligence, and demining to military and civilian logistics, to manage the refugee movements,” explains Valentin Goujon, a doctoral student in sociology at Science Po’s Medialab. “It’s a lab for AI systems. ” Indeed, each use allows Palantir to improve its technologies, but also to get a foot in the door for future contracts, thanks to the experience it gained from those secured “in a rush.” Similary, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic thus was an opportunity to offer its software to several European countries, including France, which did not pursue the offer. In contrast, this strategy was extremely effective in the United Kingdom.

Gaining access to British health data

In 2019, Palantir took an interest in the NHS, the United Kingdom’s public healthcare system, which treats millions of patients each year and thus represents an exceptional source of personal data. Secretary of State Liam Fox and officials from the Department for International Trade had held closed-door meetings with executives from the US firm in Davos to discuss this “untapped” potential. Palantir finally secured its first contract in 2020, while public procurement procedures were suspended due to the health crisis. Martha Dark, director of the British NGO Foxglove, says: “When Palantir was awarded the contract for COVID-19 response, it was done in secret, and the government did not disclose which companies were handling the health data, who had access to it, or under what conditions.” Foxglove and OpenDemocracy had to start a legal battle to secure the publication of the agreements.

“They provided access to Foundry [a Palantir software product] for a symbolic £1 for three months as part of the Covid emergency response. It was generous, and it was needed. But the pandemic didn’t last three months, and after that, it was renewed for £1 million,” explains Duncan McCann of the NGO GoodLaw Project. The next contract amounted to £23 million, and it was followed by an extension for 11.5 million. Finally, in 2023, the NHS awarded Palantir a £330 million contract to establish a central data platform to consolidate all public health system data. According to Martha Dark, “Palantir benefited from the experience it gained during its early years working with the NHS—something its competitors lacked. This gave them a significant advantage in getting the contract.”

Charities, doctors, and even NHS data analysts are alarmed by the ethical and practical issues surrounding this partnership. “Palantir is a uniquely complex and problematic company. It is a surveillance firm with a track record of military contracts, originally funded by the CIA, aligned with Silicon Valley billionaires, and founded by Trump-backer Peter Thiel, who has said he no longer believes that democracy and freedom are compatible. It doesn’t inspire trust, yet trust is the foundation of healthcare work. People don’t go to the NHS or see a doctor if there isn’t a relationship of trust,” continues Martha Dark.

For Duncan, “Palantir’s tools are not simply neutral IT systems. Their activities in the United States raise serious concerns, such as the ELITE system, which uses health data to track migrants.” The far-right party ReformUK has just made a breakthrough in the latest local elections across the Channel. Its platform explicitly calls for the creation of a database to carry out mass deportations by cross-referencing data from multiple agencies to identify migrants. A mission Palantir’s platforms would be perfectly suited for, and where NHS data would be highly useful.

Contracts that are impossible to terminate?

Nevertheless, activists are confident that the Labour government will enforce the withdrawal clause scheduled for 2027, given the mobilization around this issue, including from members of Parliament. Moreover, many health centers do not use Palantir software yet. A parliamentary report was just published that describes the UK’s reliance on Palantir and other US giants for its public services as an “unacceptable weakness”.

Ceasing the use of Palantir software could, in the long run, save money. Last April, the UK Department for Housing announced that by terminating its contract with the US company to switch to an in-house system it was saving millions of pounds a year in operating costs. That contract was created for the management of housing for Ukrainian refugees, and Palantir had secured it by using the same strategy as with the NHS. The company had started by offering six months of free assistance to the government, before securing a one-year contract worth 4.5 million pounds without any competitive bidding. The contract was renewed in September 2023 for 5.5 million pounds.

According to an audit, in early 2023, the cost of switching to an internal system was deemed complex and expensive, although the switch did eventually happen in September 2025. These timelines raise questions about the public sector’s struggle to moving away from Palantir solutions. In France, the DGSI has been trying to switch to another system for ten years.

“There is a real revolving door between Palantir and the government”

Healthcare and housing are far from the only sectors where Palantir has secured contracts with the British government. In January 2026, The Nerve had identified at least 34 contracts totaling at least 670 million pounds, ranging from the Ministry of Defense to the NHS and local authorities. Investigations by journalists and NGOs have highlighted various forms of collusion between the American multinational and politicians. “We’ve seen a real revolving door between NHS data workers and Palantir since it won its first contract with the health service. The government has links too – on Keir Starmer’s first trip to the United States to meet with Donald Trump, he went first to the White House, and then to Palantir’s headquarters.” says Martha Dark. The Prime Minister was accompanied by Peter Mandelson, the UK’s ambassador in Washington at the time. He is also the founder and a shareholder of Global Counsel, a lobbying firm whose clients included Palantir.

According to The Nerve, Palantir has recruited at least 32 senior civil servants, MPs, former ministers, or British intelligence officials in recent years. For instance, the former Ministry of Defense senior official on AI, who co-authored the military’s strategic document on the subject, became a senior advisor to Palantir CEO Alex Karp on “geostrategy .” The former director for AI at the NHS became director of health, research, and AI at Palantir in 2022, before leaving the company in 2024. Four members of the House of Lords have also worked for Palantir, including the former chair of the Science and Technology Committee. Since 2021, Palantir has hired or contracted two former ministers, an advisor to the Prime Minister, two army generals, and a former head of MI6 (the British intelligence services), as well as other intelligence officials.

Palantir’s Networks in France: From Airbus…

While the United Kingdom has welcomed Palantir with open arms, French authorities have been a bit more cautious. Although France is now Palantir’s third-largest market globally, the only public contract the US giant has secured in the country to date is the one signed with the DGSI. Most of Palantir’s clients are in the private sector, and they are mainly large corporations. Fabrice Brégier, who served as president of the US firm’s French branch from 2018 to 2024, appears to have played a key role. Brégier came from Airbus, one of Palantir’s main clients (the two companies formed a partnership in 2015). He is also a member of Engie’s Board of Directors, chairman of the reinsurance group Scor, and a member of Safran’s Board of Directors. Both Engie and Scor have used Palantir products.

The US multinational also appears to be working closely with Capgemini: according to the CGT union, the group is “deploying Palantir software” for its clients in France, including for Equans, the Bouygues subsidiary specialising in energy services. A role similar to that played by firms such as Accenture and Deloitte.

As a Polytechnique graduate, Brégier has undoubtedly helped the company attract graduates from the prestigious school. According to our calculations on LinkedIn and in the Polytechnique internal directory, several dozen of them are currently working for Palantir. For several years now, Palantir has had a booth at the X-Forum, the school’s career fair, and the company has also participated in events organized by alumni (dinners, tours of the headquarters, etc.) . Startups are another target for Palantir in France. In 2021, the company set up shop for a year at Station F, the incubator created by businessman Xavier Niel in Paris, to offer its technologies to startups there.

… to the French Government

While Palantir does not report any lobbying activities in France, its executives have many opportunities to meet with French policymakers. Its U.S. head, Alex Karp, is part of the working group on the “future of work” for the Tech for Good initiative, launched by Emmanuel Macron in 2018. He was also present at the Choose France summit at the Palace of Versailles in 2023, accompanied by Gautier Cloix, a director at Palantir at the time. Cloix later thanked ministers Gabriel Attal, Clément Beaune, and Hervé Derville for the discussions they had there. Based in the United States at the time, Gautier Cloix also hosted the French ambassador in Washington, Philippe Etienne, that same year—accompanied by the French consul general in Los Angeles—at Palantir’s offices in Denver. Palantir’s chief technology officer, Shyam Sankar, was present at the meeting.

More recently, Palantir France’s Deputy CEO Pierre Lucotte was consulted regarding the preparation of the 2025 European defense industrial strategy, whose report recommends not missing out on the opportunity to develop a “French-style” Palantir .” According to Intelligence Online, members of the Minister of the Economy and Finance’s entourage reportedly discussed the handling of suspicion-of-money-laundering reports from banks received by Tracfin with Palantir representatives. The ministry clarified that no official steps had been taken. In January 2026, Peter Thiel, founder and shareholder of Palantir, had lunch in Paris with Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to discuss digital regulation, democracy, and transatlantic relations.

According to Le Monde, the minister’s chief of staff is close to Jacob Helberg, a former advisor to Alex Karp at Palantir who went on to become Donald Trump’s Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment. Helberg is also said to have good relations with Louis Sarkozy and Richard Attias, and has publicly criticized the court rulings against Nicolas Sarkozy, François Fillon, and Marine Le Pen (whom he has met). He is also said to have invited Sarah Knafo, of the far-right Reconquête party, to Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025. This inclination towards the far-right aligns with the Trump administration’s overt support for “patriotic parties” in Europe, as well as with Palantir executives’ connections to reactionary networks (see Part 1).

To date, France has been one the countries resisting Palantir’s invasion, at least in the management of public services. Despite the renewal of the contract with the DGSI in 2026, authorities are still attempting to develop alternative technologies. In fact, German intelligence services have chosen Chapvision, a French technology provider, to avoid relying on Palantir. Given Donald Trump’s stances, more and more European countries may wish to free themselves from dependence on US technologies, that are deeply associated with the reactionary international’s political vision.