France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard told Le Monde newspaper that he would announce a new enterprise project for the next five years on 1 July. Delayed several times, the five-year plan will be designed to make Orange France competitive again in fixed and ADSL, he said. This may be based on lower prices, but only if regulator Arcep's current regulation is reconsidered. The body still sees France Telecom as dominant, which is no longer the case, according to the CEO. He wants asymmetric regulation to be abandoned. Citing as an example of the system's unfairness, Richard explains that France Telecom-Orange still has 20,000 employees in French call centres, whereas SFR and Free use mainly outsourced facilities. Richard also said he expected to be summoned as a witness in a "moral harassment" case opened against the group by the Paris public prosecutor in April in the wake of a spate of employee suicides. "We live in a society where the 'judiciarisation' of business has become generalised", he stated. The term refers to increasing intervention by the courts as well as a rise in the tendency to litigate when disputes could be resolved amicably or through mediation. In February, a report from the work inspectorate found the operator was potentially guilty of putting workers at risk of serious health problems due to its organisational changes, and of employing management methods likened to harassment. Asked about Orange's content strategy, he said that the group would certainly not close the Orange Sport channel, which has several hundreds of thousands of subscribers, although putting nearly all of the content budget into pay TV was not a good idea, as internet portals and app stores need investment as well. Finally, the CEO regretted that Orange did not invest earlier in its rival offer to Apple's App Store.
