France's ANSSI sets a phased hybrid path to post-quantum cryptography
4 JANUARY 2022, PARIS
France's cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, set out its post-quantum views on 4 January 2022, followed by a 2023 update and a 2026 paper on crypto agility. ANSSI favours a phased transition rather than a single switch, and it makes hybrid schemes mandatory for long-term products from 2025. A hybrid scheme pairs a classical algorithm with a post-quantum one, so a system stays secure if either later proves weak.
Targeting long-term products first reflects the harvest-now-decrypt-later risk. These products hold data that must stay confidential for many years, which is the data an adversary gains most from recording today and decrypting later. Requiring hybrids there protects the most exposed data while keeping a trusted classical algorithm as a fallback during the transition.
ANSSI aligns its position with Germany's BSI, so Europe's two most influential cybersecurity agencies present a consistent phased, hybrid-first approach. That alignment helps vendors who sell across both markets, because they can plan one transition that satisfies both agencies rather than reconciling two different sets of expectations.
Why it matters. ANSSI's phased, hybrid-first path has shaped the European approach since 2022, and its alignment with the BSI gives vendors a stable target. Organizations building long-term products for the French market face a 2025 hybrid expectation already, so those that adopted hybrids early are ahead of the curve. The 2026 crypto agility paper reinforces that flexible systems ease every future transition.