The French Competition Authority inherits control of the takeover of SFR, a major operation for the telecoms sector.
The control of the SFR takeover project will be carried out in France by the Competition Authority, the European Commission having decided to refer the examination of the file to it. This decision, announced Wednesday in a press release, puts an end to the uncertainty which hovered over the competence of the body responsible for examining this operation. Until now, the competence of the European Commission or the French Authority to examine this transaction had not been decided.
“The European Commission considered that the French Competition Authority was best placed to examine this operation,” the Authority said. This transfer was carried out “in agreement with the company concerned”, Iliad, which had requested the referral, specifies the press release. The groups concerned by this file had already indicated their preference for treatment in France. The reference concerns the takeover of exclusive control by Iliad of certain assets held by Altice France, an operation which is part of a consortium giving rise to three distinct but contractually linked concentration operations.
A memorandum of understanding between three operators
The three French operators Iliad (Free), Bouygues and Orange concluded a memorandum of understanding in June to buy their competitor SFR, owned by Altice France. This operation, worth 20.35 billion euros, constitutes one of the largest current concentration operations in France and would also lead to an unprecedented reconfiguration of the telecoms sector since the arrival of Free on the mobile market in 2012.
The terms of participation in the operation have already been defined. Bouygues Telecom will pay 42% of the sale price, Free-Groupe Iliad 31% and Orange 27%, through the acquisition of shares in the company SFR. In terms of asset allocation, the subsidiary of the Bouygues group would notably gain the B2B segment of SFR, that is to say the offers dedicated to professionals, as well as part of its general public activities, i.e. around 6.4 million mobile and landline customers.
The Competition Authority indicated on Wednesday that it “will, however, continue to cooperate with the European Commission during the investigation.” According to her, the processing time for the file should take “at least 18 months”.
The Orange and Bouygues groups submitted their files to the French authority, but the Iliad group, which generates a significant part of its turnover in other European countries, had to submit its request for examination to the Commission. Orange and Bouygues Telecom began their discussions with the Authority on June 30, 2026, with the sending of pre-notification elements. With the transfer decision, the French competition watchdog can now examine the entire file.
A sector under surveillance
Questioned by Le Monde after the formalization of the takeover agreement, the president of the Competition Authority, Benoît Cœuré, had already considered that the operation was “not self-evident”, referring to “a merger in an already very concentrated market”. He added: “If we had already concluded that the transition from four to three operators on the French market was necessarily anti-competitive, we would have said so.”
