One problem that I think is somewhat related to the top-down, bureaucratic situation is that whatever big project they try to do is a copy of something else.

They didn't want to build Google / Facebook / Whatever before those existed. Instead, they want to build a "French Google". Qwant is an example of that. Whatever they're trying to accomplish with Orange in the cloud business is just a "French AWS".

During the lockdown when everyone was using Zoom, some politician was unhappy that EU countries would depend on foreign technology. Solution? Build a European Zoom! I find this kind of ironic, seeing how Skype used to be European...