TousAntiCovid: PNF survey following a 6.5 M € contract without a call for tenders

Clearly the TousAntiCovid application is never stingy with a controversy. According to AFP, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) opened a preliminary investigation for favoritism last September. This trigger follows a report in June 2020 to the public prosecutor by the Anticor association. The latter underlines the absence of a call for tenders for the application maintenance contract which was still called StopCovid at the time. This contract was awarded to 3DS Outscale, cloud subsidiary of Dasssault Systems. Last March, the association had taken another step forward by filing a complaint before the Court of Justice of the Republic for favoritism. But this complaint had been closed by the CJR.

In Anticor’s viewpoint, there is the cost of maintaining the TousAntiCovid application, which justifies the fact that the government calls for tenders for supply and service contracts. According to public procurement rules, this amount is set at 139,000 euros excluding tax. In its press release, the association notes that the application has cost the State much more. “Licenses (€ 69,676 including tax / year), user support (€ 720,000 including tax / year), animation of the deployment (€ 432,000 including tax / year), hosting (€ 576,000 including tax / year) as well as that the communication campaign (2,793,000 € incl. VAT / year) would henceforth constitute a contract for a total amount of 6.5 million euros incl.

Pointed out, 3DS Outscale declined to comment by referring to the Secretary of State for digital. Also asked to react to the opening of the investigation, the cabinet of Cédric O did not respond at the time of writing the article. As a reminder, the TousAntiCovid application has been downloaded more than 16 million times and should become the health pass for certain activities in the coming days.