The valley of information sprouting in the heart of the empire - a small research center on the Seine, 1960s

The valley of information sprouting in the heart of the empire - a small research center on the Seine, 1960s

In the midst of the Cold War, while nuclear deterrence and space exploration were symbols of the U.S.-Soviet confrontation, information technology was also emerging as a new strategic resource. 1960s France, under the regime of Charles de Gaulle, was seeking to break away from its dependence on the United States under the banner of "self-reliance. The research center built in a quiet valley along the Seine River was therefore positioned not merely as a place for academic research, but as a testing ground for advanced technology that would place the prestige of the nation on the line. The mathematicians, physicists, and communications engineering specialists who gathered here explored new possibilities for information networks that transcended the boundaries between military and civilian life, working on innovations such as cryptography, distributed communications, and packet switching.

At the same time, the Pentagon-led ARPANET was being conceived in the United States, exploring a distributed communications network that could withstand a nuclear attack during the Cold War. The French attempt, while influenced by these efforts, was strongly colored by the search for a unique European path, and developed in a way that combined an academic community with a national strategy. Cryptographic theory and early data communication technologies would eventually lead to the transformation of the information space into a new battlefield, where military and civilian uses were inextricably intertwined. The quiet research that sprouted in a small valley on the Seine would later foreshadow international conflicts over Internet hegemony and open the door to an era in which information and communications would be treated as an "invisible weapon.