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The recent history of France Telecom is emblematic of the current dynamics of the country. France Telecom, which still does not resign in this column to call the name of an intermediate position of traffic - which immediately precedes the stop position - is one of the finest companies in the world. After the very elitist Directorate General of Telecommunications, the company has never stopped being pioneer in all areas that concern. The development of the first optical fiber in 1970, the first time switch in the world in 1971 (CNET Lannion), Minitel in 1982, the first smart card, the radio, satellites launched by Arianespace, submarine cables marine Alcatel For decades, France Telecom has continued to fund, inspire or produce the most decisive in the field of telecommunications inventions. Like the great French successes in the field of energy and aerospace-defense, France Telecom is the sign and the factor of a French genius, ahead of global competition, particularly American.
And then something along the way, broke. We will not go here into the deleterious game of "finger pointing" and we affirm the contrary, without further precaution, the last leaders of France Telecom, Gérard Théry Stéphane Richard, were all rise successive missions and changing the state had entrusted to them.
This is precisely where the rub: for at least a decade, the project of the French government for this company, which is the largest shareholder, is absurd. It could be summarized as follows: the maximum rise in dividends to compensate for the inability of the state to balance its own for months.
Over the past five years alone, more than 18 billion euros have been raised to the shareholders of France Telecom. Everything was good to milk the cash cow: abandonment of research and development in France and significant foreign investments; agreement singular roaming, site closures and job cuts to all floors. The shareholder, devoid of any industrial state vision, turned into a manager of mutual funds at year performance bond. The financial markets , which is always wrong in the short term but not long-term, have sanctioned this depletion: since March 2009, the low point of the financial markets after the crisis "subprime", France Telecom has lost 40% of its value, nearly 20 billion euros. At the same time, the CAC 40 progressed by 50%; Iliad (Free) tripled in value, and Deutsche Telekom, which was equivalent to that France Telecom market value five years ago, is now worth double.
The losers are not only shareholders but also France Telecom employees. In this very union, where the practices of the French co-management is a powerful factor immobility and mismanagement, the only horizon, when it is not as dramatic recovery wave current suicide, is that of attrition and despair: 30,000 positions will be eliminated by 2020.
France Telecom, the country's image, deserves better than this short-sighted management and purely hexagonal proclaimed a decline. The future in the field of communication, carries exciting challenges, and job creation in the tens of thousands: building a European Internet network, as proposed by Angela Merkel Francois Hollande at the Council Franco-German Ministers of 19 February, the creation of a commercial offering and a regulatory framework giving Europeans the right to digital privacy, the rapid development of telecommunication and audiovisual markets in Africa, where France has more a playing card, especially under the Francophonie, and the necessary concentration of a European telecoms market, fragmented between more than 100 operators, where the U.S. market has only three.
The choice for the state shareholder, is binary. If it continues to have no strategy for its industrial holdings, then we must sell all, EDF in France Télécom, through Aéroports de Paris, Air France, etc.. These companies deserve real industrial shareholders with a strategic and capable of bearing dynamic growth vision: they find them in the private sector, in France and abroad. If, however, the French government would recover one day and give an industrial ambition, then the prescription is very different. It is always open these firms - in terms of capital, management and strategic vision - their European partners, particularly Germany. If the "Airbus" digital, energy and finance, to be anything other than slogans worn, it is time to actively prepare these reconciliations. For France Telecom, without underestimating governance issues, the obvious strategic alliance is that it will build with Deutsche Telekom, before developing all southern markets (Mediterranean, Africa) and East (Central Europe and Eastern) and deploy a credible offer technology provider in the area of connectivity, "big data" cloud, etc.. Building together the European Internet; explore with budgets and methods of R & D and significant common now the potential that digital (virtual currency, cyber security, financial services) create long-term value for shareholders, and jobs by the tens of thousands. Like the country, it is in giving a European sustainable and vibrant future Orange happen in the green.