, Columnist
Macron Should Call a Billionaire's Bluff
Altice is promising to spend 15 billion euros on a French fiber network. France should tell him to go right ahead.
This article is for subscribers only.
Tycoon Patrick Drahi has been telling everyone lately that he's going to spend about 15 billion euros ($17.6 billion) building a national fiber broadband network in France. What's more, he says his local operator SFR Group SA will have it done by 2025 and won't take the public subsidies used by his rivals.
If he follows through on the big talk (and that's a big if), SFR would opt out of a six-year old government-led plan that aims to coordinate construction of a fiber network by offering sweeteners to operators building outside the big cities.