• For the first time, two French IT Security Evaluation Centers (CESTI) — those of Thales and CEA — are cooperating in the assessment of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms as part of the GIVERNY project.
• CEA’s CESTI was the first French laboratory accredited by ANSSI to conduct evaluations of products integrating PQC under the new EUCC European certification scheme. Thales’ CESTI, already engaged in this process with ANSSI, is expected to join soon.
• Presented at the European Cyber Week 2025 in Rennes (France), from 17 to 20 November, this milestone represents a major contribution to European digital sovereignty and allows solution providers to obtain PQC certification to protect their users against the challenges posed by quantum computing.

As the quantum revolution compels us to rethink the foundations of cybersecurity, Thales — a global high-tech leader in Defense, Aerospace, and Cyber & DigItal — and CEA, a public research body serving the State to ensure France’s scientific and technological sovereignty, have collaborated to assess and strengthen the new generation of post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms.

In 2025, Thales and CEA launched a joint project called GIVERNY, aimed at exploring the resistance to attacks of two post-quantum algorithms: the HAWK signature scheme, which is closely related to the NIST FN-DSA (Digital Signature Standard), and the FAEST signature scheme, which is related to the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard).

Through joint development and cross-evaluation work, Thales and CEA cryptographers and cybersecurity experts analysed the robustness of FAEST and HAWK under real-world implementation scenarios comparable to those of future electronic products integrating post-quantum cryptography.

This collaboration between the two CESTIs recognized by ANSSI for their post-quantum cryptography expertise is unprecedented in France and marks a key step in preparing the industry for the transition to quantum-resistant systems.

The GIVERNY project results come at a time when ANSSI has recently announced that products placed on the market after 2030 must transition to post-quantum algorithms, with this requirement applying as early as 2027 for sensitive products seeking qualification. 

Source: ThalesGroup