A look at cybersurveillance startup Altrnativ, started by Eric Leandri, disgraced Qwant search co-founder, who was lauded as France's digital privacy defender
This story is part of the series Leaked: The Altrnativ world of cybersurveillance. Read the rest. Tweets: @laukaya , @antoanetaroussi , and @sophieintveld Tweets: Laura Kayali / @laukaya : Remember Qwant? Here's how the disgraced co-founder of France's answer to Google moved into the murky world of cybersurveillance. Top investigation by @ElisaBraun and @JulesDrmnn https://www.politico.eu/... Antoaneta Roussi / @antoanetaroussi : Excellent series by Politico's @elisabraun on how the former CEO of Qwant—Europe's answer to Google— created a surveillance company that worked with luxury goods company LVMH,submarine manufacturer Naval Group and the French government to provide intel. https://www.politico.eu/... @sophieintveld : Another peek into the murky world of surveillance technologies, where dictators as well as democratic governments do their shopping. Ethics nowhere to be seen. @POLITICOEurope https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Eric Leandri built his reputation as co-founder of Qwant, the search engine pitched as Europe's privacy-respecting answer to Google — which makes the pivot to running a cybersurveillance startup that supplied intelligence to LVMH, Naval Group and the French government a direct inversion of that brand. The Politico investigation lands in a well-documented lineage: David Vincenzetti's Hacking Team sold spyware to over 40 governments, and private-equity money has long backed similar vendors, with Francisco Partners' portfolio including NSO Group and Sandvine pursuing authoritarian-regime deals.
First-order effects
- Leandri's 'disgraced' framing puts immediate reputational pressure on Qwant's remaining privacy positioning, since its most recognizable founder now runs an intelligence vendor.
- Altrnativ's named clients — LVMH, Naval Group and the French state — face scrutiny over their procurement of commercial intelligence from a startup founded by a privacy-brand figure.
Second-order effects
- Other European surveillance vendors must now compete against a rival whose selling point was insider credibility with French institutions rather than technical capability alone.
- The revelation feeds the broader accountability push around France's surveillance complex, where digital rights groups and UN experts are already critiquing the apparatus ahead of the Paris Olympics per related coverage.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds alongside the Hacking Team and NSO precedents, Europe's commercial cybersurveillance market consolidates around founders who trade national or privacy credentials for state and corporate contracts — a structural blurring of the line between consumer-facing privacy brands and the intelligence supply chain.
The trend: Europe's privacy-branded tech founders are increasingly crossing into the commercial cybersurveillance industry, joining the Hacking Team–NSO lineage of vendors selling intelligence to states and corporations.