With the recent crackdown on Anthropic, the White House has given global leaders another reason to panic about their place in the technology race.

On Friday, the U.S. ordered Anthropic to deny foreign nationals access to the company¡¯s newest artificial intelligence models. The export ban asserted a broad, unprecedented authority over the technology.

Until then, conversations in Europe about losing access to U.S. tech ¡ª sometimes posed as a presidential ¡°kill switch¡± ¡ª were theoretical. To many on the continent, Friday¡¯s move underscored the dire need to find alternatives to American AI, and fast.

France¡¯s Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced Tuesday that the civil service would roll out a tool based on local startup Mistral AI. He added that French company Chapsvision had been selected by the French domestic intelligence agency DGSI to replace U.S. software firm Palantir.

¡°France must have its own tools,¡± Lecornu said. ¡°We cannot rely on the goodwill of certain partners who, as we have seen in recent days, are capable of cutting off access to the Anthropic model.¡±

U.S. allies ¡ª already reeling from the Iran war and U.S. President Donald Trump¡¯s wavering commitment to NATO ¡ª must now confront a future in which the White House can pull the plug on AI sales abroad as it pleases. The U.S. government has previously used similar export control measures to control access to AI chips.

The leaders of the Group of Seven countries included AI as one of the key points of discussion at the meeting being hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in Evian, France, which runs through Wednesday. A draft statement said the group would ¡°further discuss emerging opportunities and potential risks arising from AI, notably in the financial sector.¡±

The latest ban, which hits Anthropic¡¯s Mythos and Fable models, affects software that banks, law firms and government offices are rushing to adopt. That decision ¡°materializes a risk that had been on everyone¡¯s mind¡± outside of the U.S., said Mathilde Velliet, who focuses on the U.S. tech strategy as a research fellow at the French Institute for Foreign Relations.

Europe, the Middle East and Canada have struggled to create their own AI companies that are of a similar scale to the U.S.-based frontier models, meaning local companies and governments often choose dominant American products that make them more vulnerable to the Trump administration¡¯s whims.

The U.S. export ban ¡°shows how the U.S. government views Europe: as an enemy, not as a friend and ally,¡± Alexandra Geese, a European parliamentarian from Germany, said in a statement. French presidential candidate for the centrist Renaissance party, Gabriel Attal, declared over the weekend that the ¡°AI war has already begun.¡± His rival on the far...