Judgment: French army vanquishes German FSFE on Hitler's birthday, Microsoft contract dispute (1716711)
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock.
Jan 23, 2026
(1716711, 1804171) Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. vs. Le ministère des armées, Tribunal Administratif de Melun.
Hitler's birthday, 20 April, was a special occasion every year under the fascist dictatorship, on par with the King's Birthday in the Commonwealth. Incidentally, the British monarchy are really Germans.
We previously considered the fact that Debianists elected a German leader on Hitler's birthday and then they did exactly the same thing again the following year.
In 2017, the German FSFE misfits began a legal case against the French military. FSFE misfits disputed the French military's decision to sign a contract with Microsoft.
The case was eventually resolved in 2021 with a judgment against the Germans / FSFE misfits. For those who failed to notice at the time, the tribunal handed down the judgment on Hitler's birthday:
While the full name of the FSFE is Free Software Foundation Europe, internal statistics and mailing list traffic levels demonstrate that the majority of these people are Germans and they do not represent Europe at large, they only represent themselves.
Throughout the legal procedure and trial, an employee of the French government, Dr Amandine Jambert from CNIL was part of the internal mailing lists used for discussions at the FSFE. Was this a conflict of interest when the FSFE was taking legal action against her own employer?
In the email below, Jambert does not state her full name, she only uses the sockpuppet identity "Cryptie" and she does not have any email signature disclosing her position within an agency of the French state.
The FSFE misfits claim to be a peak body for Free Software activism in Europe. They claim to comply with Transparency International guidelines. As the saying goes, do as we say, not as we do.
In 2023, when Jambert resigned from the FSFE misfits, she finally admitted she has a conflict of interest, implicitly admitting that she lied about harassment to avoid facing a basic ethical question.
Subject: Re: Fwd: [April - Atelier] Open Bar : Une action en justice dans les tuyaux et DSI des Armées pro-microsoft Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 13:15:58 +0200 From: Cryptie <cryptie@fsfe.org> To: team@lists.fsfe.org, Hugo Roy <hugo@hugoroy.eu>, france@lists.fsfe.org
Hi all,
I think it would be a good idea to tell them what we did/ plan to do as, in France, they are those that could help us if we need.
Best, Cryptie
Le 30 août 2017 13:12:00 GMT+02:00, Hugo Roy <hugo@hugoroy.eu> a écrit :
Hi all,
Important info: the company (Nexedi) will be represented by a lawyer that I know well, because he sucks.
I think this makes it paramount that FSFE also sues, to ensure that things are done right and limit any damage that this guy may do.
Matze: maybe you remember, I talked about this guy and how he miserably failed a lawsuit (on a similar topic against Microsoft) last year.
On 2017-08-30 12:43, Hugo Roy wrote:
Hi there,
You will find attached an April internal mailing list relating to the Microsoft - French Ministry of Defense contract, about which FSFE sent a request for information (in the potentiality of a lawsuit).
A company (Nexedi) is, apparently, going to sue over this too.
Thinking about replying to April that FSFE is also thinking about a lawsuit and to keep April updated (and that we are happy to work with them, as usual). Thoughts?
Best, Hugo
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Remember, in May 2018, the FSFE staff had an Extraordinary General Meeting without the developers present and they voted to remove the elections from the constitution of the association. They have not had a full election since 2017.
In July 2018, a few weeks after removing elections from the constitution, the German FSFE misfits went to RMLL in Strasbourg and they recorded a video of Jambert talking about democracy in French. █
