I get your point, and I agree to some extent, but I also don't think it has to be black and white. I don't really trust the French government to fund such projects long-term, but at the same time private companies create and end services all the time (looking at you Google). So within those parameters, this doesn't seem like a bad thing.
And regarding the economy, my understanding is that there's been a push in the French government (and in Europe to some extent) towards more independent services (the recent behaviour of US big tech are not helping for sure). If the government is going to generate some tool for its internal use, I sure would prefer if they open sourced it at the same time.
Finally for the WhatsApp alternative, if France or Germany or whoever else started an open source WhatsApp competitor with better encryption, I definitely think it would be good for European citizens: one less dependency on Meta. Why wouldn't we want that?
And regarding the economy, my understanding is that there's been a push in the French government (and in Europe to some extent) towards more independent services (the recent behaviour of US big tech are not helping for sure). If the government is going to generate some tool for its internal use, I sure would prefer if they open sourced it at the same time.
Finally for the WhatsApp alternative, if France or Germany or whoever else started an open source WhatsApp competitor with better encryption, I definitely think it would be good for European citizens: one less dependency on Meta. Why wouldn't we want that?