I think it's strange that companies like France (and Germany, UK, Japan, etc) don't pass a law saying "Only French companies may service web search requests originating in France". Web search is basically going to be a monopoly, so they might as well try to ensure that the vast economic rents created by the monopoly go to one of their one companies.
There is a very strong national security argument here: you don't want your citizens' web searches to be controlled by a foreign company, even if you're nominally allied with the country, because of the immense political power that control of web search entails.
This kind of policy would unite the populists on both the left and the right. The left would like the idea of redistributing money away from big American technobillionaires to local businesses, while the right would appreciate putting the interests of the nation first.
We'd get annoyed by being unable to use Google or Bing as there are not many such local services. The governments might be able to extract some more of the rents by taxing Google et al more.
There is a very strong national security argument here: you don't want your citizens' web searches to be controlled by a foreign company, even if you're nominally allied with the country, because of the immense political power that control of web search entails.
This kind of policy would unite the populists on both the left and the right. The left would like the idea of redistributing money away from big American technobillionaires to local businesses, while the right would appreciate putting the interests of the nation first.