Sarkozy's digital ambitions for France

Thomas Husson | May 07, 2007, 03:59 AM

"Together, we can create a great digital Nation" said Nicolas Sarkozy, the newly elected French President, when he was a candidate. According to his own column in the Journal du Net, "France in the digital era", Sarkozy explained his strategy and set a few goals:

- Internet households to double !
- 1 megabyte is the minimum speed any French citizen should have access to
- 50% increase in the higher education budget
- 40% increase in the research budget (Internet mentionned as top 4-5 priority)
- 33% of municipalities to have at least 1 Internet access point (bear in mind there are 36,000 "communes" in France !)
- 100% of schools connected via broadband
- 100% of universities connected via WiFI
- increase in the budget of the CNIL (French Data Protection Authority): this point will be watched carefully all the more as a controversial issue was raised 2 weeks ago by Philippe Janet (GESTE's President: an independent industry body representing online content providers) in this article: "Does the State want to kill Internet in France?". Indeed, according to a draft decree to counter terrorism and in application of a 2004 law, operators, ISPs and sites publishers/hosters would have to keep at their own expenses, any information (password, names, contacts, time of the call,...) they have on those who accessed the Internet or who made a mobile phone call...

All those goals are clearly long-term challenges that have been raised by all politicians during the campaign (see here)

In the short-term, it will be interesting to see if conditions for a 4th 3G mobile entrant are fostered and which energy policy will be conducted. Those 2 issues may look unrelated, but Martin Bouygues (CEO of broadcaster TF1, Bouygues Immobilier, Colas and Bouygues Telecom, and by the way godfather of Sarkozy's son) is rumored to buy Alstom or to invest in Areva (nuclear energy) and sell its telecom asset.

Anyway, whatever the rumors, I don't see any rationale why Bouygues Telecom* would be the only small carrier to remain independant in a consolidating industry. By the way, in a bloomberg interview, the CEO of KPN just announced he would have a close look at the company if it was for sale...

* the 3rd French operator (my former employer)