Where does the website you visit really come from?
Do we really know where a website lives? This is the question posed by Souverainet.fr, a free and technical tool that queries a DNS resolver to audit a domain name and assign it a sovereignty level from 0 to 5. The diagnosis is based on the actual location of the hosting, the registration of networks, and the nature of the name servers.
The objective is clear: to enable everyone to understand who a website used every day depends on — and to measure the legal and technical exposure that arises.
Why digital sovereignty matters
A service hosted, named, or certified from abroad remains subject to the laws of the country where its technical operators are based — even if its audience and data are French. The tool notably recalls the example of the U.S. CLOUD Act, which allows U.S. authorities to demand access to data hosted anywhere in the world by a company under their jurisdiction.
Beyond the legal framework, it is also a question of resilience: a service that relies entirely on foreign actors to exist online can be weakened by a decision it does not control.
Three technical layers, one cumulative score
Souverainet.fr analyzes the domain according to three main dimensions:
- Hosting — are the domain's IP addresses geolocated in France, on networks (AS) registered in France?
- Extension — does the domain name end with a French ccTLD (
.fr,.re,.gp, etc.)? - Name servers — are the authoritative DNS servers for the domain themselves sovereign?
The final score, ranging from 0 to 5, accumulates these criteria to provide a real-time diagnosis.
What level should you aim for?
The tool offers benchmarks according to the nature of the service:
| Level | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| 5/5 | Site of a sensitive administration (e.g., Ministry of the Armed Forces): no residual dependency outside France. |
| 3/5 | Public service operating in France: hosting and DNS resolution relying on French networks. |
| 1/5 | Internationally oriented site: indicative score. |
A sovereign DNS resolver as a bonus
Souverainet.fr does not limit itself to a one-time diagnosis. The tool also provides a public DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) resolver: configured in a browser, it only resolves domains that reach the level of sovereignty chosen by the user and returns an error for the others. A concrete way to “feel,” while browsing, the truly sovereign part of the web.
In conclusion
At a time when digital sovereignty has become a major geopolitical issue — between the CLOUD Act, European regulation, and technological dependencies — tools like Souverainet.fr offer a technical and accessible reading of a question often treated purely politically. For website administrators, public decision-makers, or simply curious citizens, it is a useful first step towards a better understanding of the dependency chains that structure the French web.