The head of French security agency ANSSI, Guillaume Poupard, has confirmed that the country's mobile network operators will be permitted to invest in Huawei equipment for their 5G deployments, although restrictions will apply to encourage the use of alternative European-based suppliers. Talking to Les Echos, Poupard said that the security agency had completed its assessment of the first authorisation requests for the roll-out of 5G equipment in a number of French cities, under the new procurement regime put in place by the government at the end of 2019.
He revealed that applications from mobile operators already using Huawei were set to receive a mixed response, with rejections and authorisations both on the cards. "We are delivering authorisations for durations that vary between three and eight years," Poupard said in the interview, specifically referring to requests for Huawei equipment. He also explained that some applications faced rejection, and this would necessarily involve making changes to networks for some operators.
This would mainly impact two of the country's four network owners, Bouygues Telecom and SFR, which rely on Huawei supplies on a large proportion of their respective LTE footprints. Since the introduction of the new procurement rules, they have both lobbied for reassurances on the future relationship with their Chinese partner, arguing that possible restrictions could delay their 5G deployment plans and force them to dismantle part of their existing LTE infrastructure.
Last month, Bouygues Telecom and SFR said that the government should put a compensation scheme in place, in a scenario where they were forced to replace Huawei with an alternative supplier.
