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Telecoms: already some problems between Xavier Niel (Free) and the probable boss of Arcep?By Delphine Dechaux on 01.05.2021 at 3:59 p.m.
What does Xavier Niel play? The boss of Free considered "absurd" the choice of Laure de la Raudière at the head of the telecoms gendarme, whose appointment should be confirmed in the coming hours. Decryption.
If Laure de la Raudière were to become, as an Elysée press release has yet to confirm, president of the Electronic Communications and Postal Regulatory Authority (Arcep), her relations with one of the four operators are starting very strong.
Interviewed Monday January 4 on BFM Business, Xavier Niel, the founder of Free and main shareholder of Iliad, pretended not to believe in his arrival at the head of the telecoms gendarme, judging that the "rumor" of this appointment could not to be a "typo" or an error of the newspaper Les Echos, which gives it for favorite. "To appoint as the head of an independent authority someone who worked for fifteen years at Orange, that strikes me as quite surprising," quipped the founder of Free. And to add: "We need a man or a woman who knows telecoms as well as Laure de la Raudière but who has not worked in the sector". His candidate was Antoine Darodes, an Arcep alumnus who oversaw the Very High Speed plan before being chief of staff of the State Secretariat for the Digital Transition. "This candidate benefited from the support of the Elysee but also of Xavier Niel (Free) and Stéphane Richard (Orange)", told Challenges a telecoms big name.
While the appointment of Sébastien Soriano's successor was considered "a done deal since Friday" by industry observers and should have been announced by the Elysee on Monday, the suspense continues.
A more political profile in the face of the "techno" candidate
Member of the AGIR group, Laure de la Raudière is close to the Minister of the Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, who supported her candidacy. Warm and accessible, after her thirteen years as a deputy, she has the advantage of long experience in public life, coupled with in-depth knowledge of the sector, facing her competitor with a more "techno" profile. A former student of the Ecole normale supérieure and a graduate of the Télécom Paris school, she indeed, as Xavier Niel noted, started her career with the incumbent operator, before founding a consulting firm in networks and telecommunications. Then, the MEP for Eure et Loire never took her eyes off the sector. Member of the Economic Affairs Committee, she co-chaired the Cybersecurity and Digital Sovereignty group, among other things, and signed several reports with MEPs Eric Bothorel and Corinne Erhel. From the benches of the Assembly, she did not hesitate to spur the telecoms gendarme. Author of a report on the digital coverage of the territory, she had thus highlighted "a worrying discrepancy between the coverage maps and the reality perceived on the ground".
Would it be a mortal sin to have worked at Orange at the head of an independent authority? From the point of view of Arcep's statutes, there is no conflict of interest or ethical issue. The authority demands that the president has not worked for a private company in the three years preceding his appointment. However, it is twenty years since Laure de la Raudière left her position at Orange to found a start-up, in 2001. She has devoted herself to politics for thirteen years.
In addition, there is no shortage of examples of regulators from operators in other countries, even if these presidents of authority rather come from the ranks of the challengers and not from the incumbent operators. The American Tom Wheeler, who has done a lot to strengthen competition in the United States, had for example led the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), while he had previously played the chief lobbyists at the head of the federation of cable operators.
Xavier Niel's statements are all the more astonishing given that the Arcep presidency nomination process was, for the first time, marked out and organized, with hearings of the finalist candidates, in particular with Alexis Kohler, secretary. General of the Elysée, and Claire Landais, Secretary General of the Government.
Could the intervention of Xavier Niel, close to Emmanuel Macron, reshuffle the process? The interference of the boss of an operator in the appointment of his supervisory authority would be shocking and, for once, clearly contrary to the rules of ethics. "It would be scandalous, lunar. It would mean that the vice-president of the country has succeeded in influencing the President of the Republic", thunders an observer of the sector. Even risking penalizing the Elysee Palace, the maneuver therefore seems unlikely to succeed. "I rather see in Xavier Niel's words a man