Orange SA Sponsored ADR Aktie

[indiscernible] the general meeting on the orange.com website. Now I'd like to provide you with some legal information regarding the conduct of this combined general meeting. In accordance with the law and Article 21 of Orange articles of association, I will preside over this meeting, which is being held on the first call. The preliminary notice of the meeting published in the [indiscernible] on February 27, 2026. And the notice of the meeting was published in the [indiscernible] as well as in a legal notice publication on the website of the newspaper, [indiscernible].

So all has, therefore, been duly published. The quorum is now reached for the ordinary and extraordinary. [Audio Gap]

of the General Meeting. The provisional quorum is 2.54% to my knowledge. We will communicate the final quorum during the meeting. But I would like to let you know is that we are expecting it to be much higher than last year's and much higher than most of the [indiscernible] about this when I talk about my discussions with the investors. I hereby declare this general meeting open. I propose that we [indiscernible] 2 shareholders with the largest number of votes are the French government and BP participation.

However, the public sector, mindful of the diversity of representation within this general Christel Heydemann, whom you're very familiar with, our Chief Executive Officer; Laurent Martinez, Chief Financial Officer; [indiscernible], Group General Secretary and 3 of the Board of Directors. The members of the Board of Directors are also present today, in the front row, along with the members of the Executive Committee of your companies. This general meeting is an opportunity for me to acknowledge the work carried out by all of the directors as well as the Governance and CSR Committee, the Board committees, the governance CSR Committee is chaired by [indiscernible] The Audit Committee chaired by [indiscernible] and the Strategy and Technology Committee chaired by [indiscernible]. These directors are independent directors as a reminder. Once again, in 2025, carried [indiscernible] tireless work, and I will discuss this in detail a bit later. But first of all, I would like to talk about the stock market developments since Hiland took office in April 2022. So EUR [ 18 220 ] that's what I have in my document, but I think it's up -- it's at EUR 18.7 now. So plus 66% of the stock price. But if you include all of the dividends reinvested to accounts for a 120% increase. This growth places us among the leaders in the telecom sectors, it reflects the successful execution of the lead the future plan. It shows how we sell the strategic direction set by senior management are and which were approved by the Board of Directors. And I see 3 main reasons for this growth, which benefits all of you, individual and institutional shareholders of Orange, but also the employee shareholders. The first reason, in my view, is the strong performance in 2025, which made it possible to raise the annual EBITDA target.

And then there was also the positive reception of the messages from last February's investor meeting and the new -- trust the future strategic plan. And finally, there's the prospect of a potential consolidation of the French market. The telecom [indiscernible] asking for this for years. It is essential to foster the emergence of French and European champions capable of competing with major international players because there can be no digital 70 without strong operators that can invest in new technology and network. We are starting to hear this message and our CEO will talk more about this later.

We'd like to seize this opportunity to share my vision of the group directions implemented in recent years, and thanks to which the company's financial position has improved. We are now more prepared for the technological disruptions that lie ahead. Since 2010, a business model has emerged within the telecom sector evolving in consolidating physical infrastructure particularly mobile infrastructure, given rise, for example, to tower co, such as [indiscernible] at Orange and telecom operators eventually sold all a part of this structure to finance the essential investments required to handle the exponential growth in network traffic.

The needs of massive investment is cash 22 for operators. as one of the ratios closely crystalized by the market is the ratio of capital expenditures to revenue. So some investors would like this to decrease. It stands at 15.4% in 2025, representing EUR 6.2 billion. But on the other hand, [ Orange ] must continue to invest to prepare for the future because your company's business is a long-term endeavor. And a striking example of this is the group's leadership in fiber almost 100 million households connectable to FTTH worldwide. The FTTH access base has reached 15.4 million connections. So you see how IA growth potential is up 14% year-over-year. Orange's strategic choice has been one of wisdom and boldness.

Wisdom remaining the owner of its infrastructure, while continuing to invest to prepare for the future in a bold way. commitment to staying in the driver's seat was also embodied in a strategy to keep certain regions such as Africa, certain activities such as cybersecurity [indiscernible] Orange's business with a diversified and balanced portfolio of operations that help face an unstable geopolitical landscape the MEA region is maintaining strong performance and projects ambitious growth by 2030.

This momentum is accelerating its profitability and strengthening its contribution to the group's revenue. Current growth drivers, population, the expansion of usage with for 5G, fiber and Orange Money are driving performance in this area. But we remain vigilant regarding the arrival of satellite technology and the rise of things. The cybersecurity market, which is not limited to large companies only continues to evolve rapidly both SMEs and individual consumers growth relays in spite of the emergence of newcomers.

Orange Cyber Defense stand a strong chance in this highly competitive market. These strategic decisions have allowed Orange stakeholders shareholders to benefit from the rise in the share price I mentioned, particularly shareholders and employee shareholders who represent a stable and loyal base, which is significant in this shaky [indiscernible] environment. As of December 31, 2025, employee shareholders, dimensionally them [indiscernible] 8% of Orange Capital and 12.35% of the voting rights. So this represents an asset base of nearly EUR 3.8 billion from which Orange employees active employees working employees or retiring employees have been able to benefit and this is value created for shareholders.

And beyond these figures, [ Orange ] remains committed to the stable long-term sharing of value between shareholders and employees. Now I would like to emphasize here the importance of employee shareholders in the group's governance and their confidence in the future. to secure this future, I firmly believe in the beneficial effects of the consolidation initiatives that have already taken place Orange's initiative. I'm thinking of Romania, Belgium, but especially Spain, where has become the leading operator in terms of customer numbers with Mason. The reconsolidation of [ MASORANGE ], which is expected to take place within the next few days, we'll make paying the group's second largest market on par with the MEA region. This is a significant step in Orange's strategy to be a leader in its markets, will generate more than EUR 500 million in cumulative synergies and will contribute to the growth of the profitability of your group. I hope that this trend also takes hold in France. In '25, '26, the SFR matter was the focus of numerous Board of Directors meetings, which established an ad hoc committee to monitor the progress of discussions and the key stages of the negotiation process and to enable the CEO to rely on the clear guidelines decided upon by the Board of Directors.

[indiscernible] will come back on that in her presentation. On April 17, the milestone was reached with the announcement of the start of exclusive negotiations for the acquisition of SFR. This project would enable efficiency gains that benefit consumers in terms of service quality, costs, and also network resilience. It would also encourage investments in network modernization. There's still a long way to go on this matter, but I can already reassure you reassure the authorities responsible for competition and regulation. If this project succeeds, competition amongst players in France will remain strong. the stances of telecom regulators remain difficult to understand in the light of the sector's current challenges. But the facts are there accurate.

Digital Europe is lagging behind China and the U.S., and not a day goes by without us hearing about the primacy and independence of European sovereignty and competitiveness. Here again, the past ahead is clear. We're going towards [indiscernible] of the regulations in Europe, faring those invest rather those who take advantage from other investments. The European Commission recent publication in [indiscernible] guidelines on mergers and acquisitions, which follows on from the observations I mentioned, [indiscernible] in the prevailing mindset. And I hope a genuine awareness of how the world is changing. Despite this, the positive changes we might have hoped for remain uncertain.

The European Commission draft a digital network act, which was intended to modernize the telecom's regulatory framework by streamlining and harmonizing it remains excessively complicated. How could this EUR 372 million page along document possibly simplify anything. And the same trend can be observed in other industries, like the women on boards directive aiming and introducing greater gender diversity on corporate boards. It ultimately proves extremely complicated for companies to implement, and they are unfortunately too many examples of that Beyond intentions, regulation was constantly question it's applicability and whilst evolve alongside the market to support the stakeholders involved. It must take into account the efforts carried out, the results achieved and the imbalance is observed.

Today and speaking only of France, fiber has been widely rolled out. And more than 94% of premises are now connected to fiber operators who've embraced modernization can no longer accept the regulatory framework that was designed a long time ago. Throughout the past year, the Board of Directors has continued its effort to monitor and anticipate potential technological disruptions. AI has been the focus of strategy and technology committee meetings as a driver of growth. And in this area, Orange already has a solid foundation [indiscernible] AI platform called [indiscernible], which enabled us to develop an offering for our customers [indiscernible] live intelligence. This app is strongly used and it illustrates the group's internal commitment and the [indiscernible] of its AI ecosystem. As this technology spreads throughout the company, Orange will need to adapt with the necessary speed while complying with its social contract. This is the challenge as CEO will have to take up. Another disruptive issue being closely watched by our Board of Directors is the rollout of large satellite constellation. The threat posed by Starling is being closely monitored and anticipated by your company's teams, particularly in Africa, even though fiber provides higher connectivity reliability compared to satellite technology aims to achieve 5% of 4G coverage even in the most remote areas. 5G is already making headway to continue expanding and strengthening coverage in rural areas, L'Orange is now able to offer its customers a complementary range of geostationary or low orbit satellites. Regarding satellites, you know that in 2027, the European Commission have to decide on the allocation of the frequencies dedicated to them. And I hope that the bulk of these frequencies will be reserved for European operators for obvious sovereignty reasons.

I'd like to dwell a little on another program that we've worked a lot on that is the Board has worked a lot on. That is the phasing out of copper networks and the switch over to fiber, which embeds a deep change in the business model that we have. what's at stake here and the switchover will have an impact, which is appraised at EUR 1 billion between 2025 and '30. This will have to be offset by good cost control, connected to servicing and maintenance on the network and also connected to the sale of the copper that's going to be collected. This program is included in the modernization program, which changes at reducing carbon footprint and asset protection. And this also is in keeping with a demanding regulatory framework. This progressive transition means that we'll have to remove and recycle more or less 500,000 tons of copper cables what's at stake is to protect our assets against theft. The number of which has increased over the recent years. Apart from these industrial and financial challenges will have to support migration from copper to fiber for our clients. which is what Orange has started doing, but also we'll have to acquire new clients.

We'll have to secure the migration of sensitive access and guarantee continuity of service. likes this opportunity to congratulate [indiscernible] and the Orange France teams for the colos work they put in, which was essential for our future. So very quickly, I will be talking about Orange business. On the backdrop of a weakening of the traditional activities, there are many challenges ahead for Orange business. Orange business has to change deeply and accelerate its transition towards innovating and differentiating offerings. The Board is carefully monitoring this activity, which is changing in an extremely complex environment. Our business lines are changing. The ecosystem is changing as well. Now we are more a digital services company than a telco. But the Board of Directors is convinced that this reconfiguration started, thanks to [indiscernible] and with the support of Christel Heydemann will bear fruit. As is the case chair discussed with the main shareholders that we have, plus the employee representatives of the employee shareholders and also what we call the [indiscernible] Advisory Committee. I also make sure that regularly, we have conversations with these shareholders. I must say that this positive dialogue that we've had with the employee share ownership plan called a has led your Board of Directors to adapt 1 of its draft resolutions by aligning it on a resolution put forward by this plan. To summarize, the investors who I met plus the proxies, that is ISS and Glass Lewis, wanted to have more particulars as to the composition and the activity of the Board with lively discussions on things such as governance and the issues I've just described. The investors also considered that the compensation of mechanisms for the senior managers at Orange is correct. Now we've [indiscernible] on 2 specific topics because these are typical to the Orange case or business.

First one is the nomination of independent directors representing employee shareholders on the board after 2 years of litigation repeatedly by a trade union that justice has dismissed at a recent ruling or just a note of the court of appeal of [indiscernible] will allow you to vote on the nomination of this position of Mrs. [indiscernible] as an incumbent and Mr. Mark Mach as Deputy if ratified, we will put an end to a sedation which are regretted last time we had our general meeting. The second topic has to do with the fact that we need to introduce more women on the teams and more particularly, the 3 directors representing employees on the board. I was talking about this a little while ago, and [indiscernible] will give you all the details Regretfully, it is with regret rather that the Board has had to put forward 3 resolutions. And each of those have an objective, which is to end the term of office of one of the directors elected by the employees at the end of 2025. Orange has 3 men representing employees on the Board. And the law is such that we have just one choice to be compliant with the gender balance objective. Therefore, the general meeting can revoke 1 of these 3 elected representatives so that we would have as an acting deputy a woman who would be appointed as Director.

And finally, as you probably know, the Board is usually the case, assesses and reviews its functioning. This was done at the end of 2025 in a hybrid manner, that is internally. That's for the evaluation questionnaire and also by an independent firm. That's for the individual interviews. All directors took their part. This new review has provided us with many lessons. And this really shows the progress we've made since 2020 and the quality of the governance of your company.

The directors overwhelmingly support the way the system works, that is Chairman and CEO, a duo. And as far as I'm concerned, I I'd like to also acknowledge the quality of Christel Heydemann. During these 4 years, I've seen how Orange can be proud of having the head of the company, such a person and personality. We teamed up and this produced quality work during this period that was marked by deep transformations and a reshuffling of the strategy of the group. What I liked at every single moment is working with Crystal, the smoothness of the communication flow and how efficient he is. Now this [indiscernible] is essential if it combines transparency, dialogue and strategic fit. We've worked in this manner on basis of trust and for the interest of Orange.

Dear shareholders, my term of office or mandate as a director will end at the end of this general meeting. And if you still trust me, I'll still be a member of the Board. But given the current drafting of our articles in [indiscernible] be the Chairman any longer. This is why the Chair of the CGRSC has set up another committee to prepare my succession for this term of office or mandate. And Gabriel, of course, will give you all the details. But for the time being, I can confirm that the choice presented to the Board is the best possible option. And I think it is positive for many reasons.

Frederic Sanchez is an independent director and has been since 2020 and is heading the strategy in technology committee. He is an international leader and knows all of the orange programs and is familiar with the telco business. Therefore, he has all the skills that are required to chair your Board. And then I must insist on the fact that this appointment is a premier first for Orange. This is the result of in-house work, which was dense and minute. And for the very first time, within the members of your Board, will manage to find your new chairperson. I can only welcome this Dear shareholders, thank you very much for your attention. Now I'll hand over to Anne-Gabrielle Heilbronner.

Well, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. Now I'll be talking you through the work done by your Board and CGRIC during 2025. As you probably know, the role of your Board of Directors is to rule on all the decisions linked to the strategic, economic, social, financial or technological orientations taken by your company. I would like to illustrate this in a tangible manner. To tell you what we've done. It will show that your directors are very much involved. They're serious and your Board has looked at each case in a very serious manner preparation of the Board meetings as well as the committee meetings requires sustained and regular work in 2025. The Board met 11 times. The Audit Committee met 10 times; the Governance and CSR Committee 6 times; and the CST for technology 5 times. This is more than what we have in the SBF 120, where usually, as an average, we have 9.2 meetings a year. To aduccommittees were set up to follow the negotiations in Spain and France on the one hand and to prepare the renewal of our government in the second half. All in all, more or less 20 meetings of these adult committees were focusing on these topics. In addition to this, we had a 2-day strategic seminar, and we travel to Africa. This really shows that all of our directors are here to serve orange. The attendance -- collective attendance level is high, 96.3% and there's a high number of directors who are still in employment. [indiscernible] is above that of our peers. This number doesn't take into account the adopt committees because otherwise, the result have been even better. On your behalf, dear shareholders, please allow me to thank our directors for their commitment, engagement for the quality of the work they put in for the Board.

This is something we can see in the annual appraisal of the functioning of the Board. The directors say that there were quality debates, there's a good balance between top-down presentations and discussions, what they like is preparation, the positive conversations and the fact that their discussions are based on transparency and trust. We have benchmarked the company, which is good. It helps us make the best visions and this has become a regular practice. The directors also would like to say that as a group, the group is working well, and seniority in average is 5 years. And we've also taken part in the meetings organized with the managers and during annual seminars. And finally, and that's something very important. The quality of the work done by the Chair and the CEO. This is something they underscored.

Now I'd like to perhaps highlight the most salient events during fiscal '25, apart from the legal normal development of the company, the Board has worked a lot on what we have in Spain. That is to take over 100% of the shares of [indiscernible] that was accepted by the European Commission in April. The Board also analyzed our growth in Africa, which is a very important region for Orange, as you know. We -- when we visited Dhaka to meet our teams and to better understand the challenges over there. The Board also focused in '25 on the telco situation in France. Orange [indiscernible] Telecom [indiscernible] announced on the 17th of April exclusive negotiations that would start with Altice France is to acquire SFR.

Now to talk about our composition. The Board of Directors has paid special attention to the appointment of the director, who is going to represent the employee shareholders. Given the fact that there was a litigation, the commercial tribunals just before last year's general meeting, said that there would be a postponement of the review for this resolution. And then on the 26th of March 2026, the Court of Appeal ruled out the decisions of the commercial tribunal.

Therefore, today, your Board will put an end to 2 years of vacancy. And you will have to be voting on a draft resolution therefore, as a director representing the employee shareholders, you will vote on the following name, Mr. [indiscernible], and the replacement or deputy will be [indiscernible] there's another point that I need to underscore because the directors have worked quite a lot on that, which is the new obligations connected to employee representation for Orange on the Board. This stems from the EU directive women on boards. There are 3 seats that have been earmarked for personnel representatives on the board. Their term of office will last 4 years. And given the fact that we'll have to renew these mandates, there were elections that were held in November '25.

The results are as follows: there was one seat for the group of employees and technicians, Mr. [indiscernible] elected. There were 2 seats available for the equivalent of managers in French [indiscernible]. Mr. [indiscernible], whose list came first was elected as well as Mr. [indiscernible], whose list came in a second position. There's a new measure aiming at better gender diversity, which has to be enforced as of the 1st of January 2026. But there are 3 seats for the employees, which is the case in Orange, then 1 of the seats at least has to be in the hands, if I can say, of a man or a woman. The governance since [indiscernible] committee that I chair has asked the General Manager of Orange to organize a consultation with people who represent the employees is to encourage them to arrive at an agreement to have better gender diversity before the 30th of June 2026 to be compliant with the law. None of them wanted to step down to give the seat to the next woman on the list on the list for which they were elected. Your Board of Directors, therefore, has to enforce the legal measures that apply.

That is the general meeting has the powers to terminate the mandate of these directors so that we would be compliant again. This would be scrutinized under Resolution 20, 21 and '22 will terminate the term of office of the male director representing the employees that has collected the greatest number of votes to the benefit of the deputy or substitute female, so that we're compliant with the law. There's another resolution that we've put up for you to approve so that we're still compliant with the law and the Articles of Association so that this situation we're looking our again. This will be voted upon when we reach resolution #14. To be consistent with the Board of Directors to to the same order that we had after the elections in 2025. When you vote, we recommend that you should vote against the adoption of resolutions number numbered 20 and 21, and that you should vote in favor of endorsing Resolution #22, which has to do with the group called CAD that is managers -- that was the second list after the elections. And finally, to put an end on that, that is the composition of the Board of Directors.

Let me talk you through the work done by the Chair of the Board of Directors of Orange. Dear shareholders, as you most certainly know, -- and as we said before, Mr. [indiscernible] term of office is coming to its normal end at the end of this general meeting. First and foremost, on behalf of all of our directors, I would like to thank him for his commitment on the Board and for what he did for Orange over the past 4 years. [indiscernible] it was really a pleasure to work with you on the Board. I really liked like all the directors the fact that you always are eager to understand that you fully [indiscernible] the strategic challenges for Orange, the way you work as well and how with you the Board has functioned in a better way. your office is coming to an end, but it's been successful in terms of governance. It is we regret that we can say that, unfortunately, we couldn't extend your mandate due to an edge limit. Therefore, the question is the criterion that we use today. and mainly when the company is going through a massive strategic transformation, which is the case for our group. The Chairman and the CEO are a key deal for these programs to succeed. I must say that [indiscernible] did an incredible job their duo was very efficient and we're very much involved.

Within the framework of the end of the mandate and as early as July 2025, CGRSC the decided to set up an another committee to work on the succession plan. And the succession plan for the top managers is something extremely important for our group. And our governance and CSR committee make sure that this is done in a confidential manner. This is the Kate Fermon, the CEO, the directors or the members of general management of Orange. And therefore, we've managed to appoint [indiscernible] as CEO of Orange France to replace [indiscernible] The ad hoc committee that was set up focused on the profile that was looked for the considered panel of different people who could match this profile and decided to introduce some of them.

Amongst the criteria, we're mainly having experience in company management and governance, understanding properly the international context and the France ecosystem. And most especially, it was important for the future Chairman to be able to keep the current positive dynamic with the Board and the CEO. This work has led the CGS -- CGRSC to make the following decision March '26. First of all, to appoint Mr. [indiscernible] Chairman of the Board, [indiscernible] has been an independent Director of Orange since 2020. [indiscernible] Chairman of the Strategy and Technology Committee. He has good knowledge of large matters and the industry in general. And he would take office right after the general assembly.

With [indiscernible], we are really continuing the work I mentioned earlier. Then the Board decided to renew to suggest a renewal of Mr. [indiscernible] term of office so that he can continue to bring Orange his deep knowledge of the group and all the experience he's acquired in the current transformation context. Lastly, the Board decided upon suggestion from the Governance Committee the CSR committee to surges renewing the term of office of Mrs. [indiscernible] in her dedication to the work of the Board.

Now I'd like to inform you that there are no plans to change Orange's management structure, which separates the roles of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. In terms of competition, if you're still listening, the CGRSE has examined the goal propositions and the way the compensation of this year would be calculated. It has remained unchanged since her appointment in April 2022 and is below the first quartile of the market. Your Board took note of this and also observed that lead the future with a successful plan. So it wished for a performance-based compensation. This proposal is submitted to your vote and it takes into account all these elements with a proposal to increase the fixed compensation and the number of performance shares that would be allocated to her.

It's so renewal of the long-term incentive plan, LTIP suggested awards. It will be contingent upon the achievement of financial and nonfinancial performance targets. The Board listened to the proposals of the Supervisory Board of the employee stock ownership fund, and accepted to amend its initial proposition to come back to an annual authorization. And this is the set of resolution #15 in the course of this annual review, the Board also considered the updating of Orange's vigilance plan and the state of sustainability.

Ladies and gentlemen, those are all the matters that were tackled by your Board of Directors at the beginning of 2025, well, throughout 2025, but also at the beginning of 2026. And lastly, I would like to really congratulate your directors for the great work they have carried out. And the leadership of the Chairman [indiscernible], whom I would like to once again thank for everything he's done for Orange in the Board. I would like to thank you for your attention.

Thank you. I'm [indiscernible] would like now to give[indiscernible] , he's CFO, and he will present the 2025 results. Laurent, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Jacques. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I'm delighted to present to you the strong financial results of your group for 2025. All of our strategic and financial targets set for 2025 have been reached in line with commitments made to our shareholders these 2024 results strengthen the group's financial health with a growth trajectory for EBITDA, strong cash generation and the maintenance of an attractive investment policy.

Orange's achievements demonstrate how successfully the future was the strategic plan enabled the group to increase value creation for all of its stakeholders. Let's start by commenting on our commercial momentum, demonstrating our capacity to track and retain an ever growing number of customers across all markets. In 2025, net sales were robust in France, Europe, but also in Africa and the Middle East, with nearly 20 million new customers in a single year. Our customer base has now reached over 340 million accesses worldwide. We've also consolidated our leadership position in with 9 million converged customers.

Regarding customer satisfaction, we are very proud to be the preferred operator in 15 of our countries, and we're also a leader in network quality. This performance is based on solid infrastructure and disciplined investments. In mobile, Orange provides 4G coverage in its 7 European countries, reaching nearly 99% of the population and in its 17 countries in Africa and the Middle East. 5G is available in our European countries and in 7 countries in Africa and the Middle East. In mainland France, Orange has been recognized as the best mobile network for the 15th consecutive year by the regulator.

Lastly, regarding fixed lines. Orange is the fiber leader in Europe with as Jacques said earlier, almost 100 million households connected connectable. This is the result of a controlled investment and policy. In 2025, our CapEx will amount to approximately EUR 6.2 billion or about 15% of revenue in line with our target. In terms of revenue now, EUR 40.4 billion, so plus 0.9% year-over-year. This shows the relevance of our model, which is resilient and focused on creating sustainable value in France, which accounts for 40% of the group's revenue. Retail services, excluding PSTN, grew over the year, but total revenue declined by a little more than 2%, driven by the structural decline in services to operators, particularly due to the transition from copper to fiber.

Africa and the Middle East are still the main drivers of growth with revenue of more than 12% and accounting today for more than 20% of total group revenue. Our customer base in the region has grown by approximately 14 million new customers in 1 year. In Europe, in all 6 countries, Poland, Belgium, Romania, Slovakia, Moldova and Luxembourg, revenue has grown by more than 2%, driven by the success of our converged offerings. In this region accounts today a little under 20% of the group's total revenue.

Finally, Orange Business B2B activity at global level is still changing in a difficult IT market and has reported a revenue decline of nearly 5% year-over-year. Orange CyberDefense continues to grow with an increase of nearly 7% of the year. In terms of profitability, it is improving, supported by our ongoing efficiency efforts. EBITDA has reached EUR 12.5 billion. So plus 3.8%. You know that our initial target was raised twice during the year. This performance was driven by record growth in Africa and the Middle East with almost 14% and solid growth in Europe with more than 3% and growth of 0.9% in France.

Our efficiency plans enabled us to achieve the target of EUR 600 million in savings over 3 years, supporting a 0.9 point increase in our EBITDA margin. Let's now move on to the net income of the company at EUR 1.1 billion. So that's down from

EUR 2.9 billion in '24 due to 3 nonrecurring effects, first, the agreement on employment, career management in France. Secondly, loss of value on Orange business operations. And lastly, the start of the operational phase of the [indiscernible] phasing out in France. The net adjusted income for these items is now EUR 3.9 million for 2025. And this corresponds to adjusted net income share 0.86 per share with, as you know, an ambition to have this indicator grow by about 10% a year by 2028. Finally, let's turn to our cash metrics with organic cash flow from telecom operations, reaching EUR 3.7 billion in 2025. increase of 8.3%, in line with our target of EUR 3.6 billion for 2025. All in, free cash flow amounts to EUR 2.8 billion, down slightly year-over-year due to the license payment schedule between '24 and '25. As of December 31, 2025, the group's net financial debt stood at EUR 2.5 billion, and the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio remained stable year-on-year at 1.8. As it's one of the strongest ratio in the industry fall in line with target of a leverage ratio around 2 in the medium term.

[indiscernible] confidence was confirmed by the successful bond issuance totaling $5 billion in late 2025 and $6 billion in early 2026 as part of the muscle Hanger consolidation on very attractive terms. At the end of 2025, Orange's average gross debt cost stands at 3.1%, and our liquidity position is at EUR 21.2 billion, which is a major asset in the current volatile environment we are facing. Cash flow generation and a strong balance sheet in '25 strengthen the group's ability to finance its growth and maintain a sound financial structure, while offering you a dividend of EUR 0.75 per share for the 25 year with an interim payment of EUR 0.30 per share paid on December 4 and the balance of $0.45 on June 15. Beyond these very solid results, as you can see, the strategic transactions undertaken in 2025 clearly strengthened the group's position and lay the groundwork for the next stages of growth.

Thus, the fourth quarter of 2025 was marked by the signing of a binding agreement with [indiscernible] to acquire the entirety of [ MASORANGE ]. Once the transaction is finalized, first half of 2026, Spain [indiscernible] market in Europe and will benefit from mass oranges value cream at 100%. Also through MASORANGE, we launched a Spain's leading fiber provider, premium fiber at the end of the year in partnership with the single Sovereign Wealth Fund and Vodafone Spain. Lastly, thanks to this very sturdy base that we presented ambitious 2026 financial target. EBITDA growth of over 3%. This target initially was at around 3%, but it was raised upon the release of our first quarter results.

CapEx over revenue ratio of approximately 15% and organic cash flow reaching about EUR 4 million, that net over EBITDA ratio of around double in the medium term. We're also planning to increase the dividend to $0.79 per share for 2026. The group confirms these targets in the event of the reconsolidation of MASORANGE with an additive effect on organic cash flow generation and a temporary increase in the net debt over EBITDA ratio, while the medium-term target remains unchanged. As for our medium-term goals, Christel will shortly outline the ambitions of the company through 2028. And I will also present the new strategic plan, trust the future. Our guiding principle is very clear. We want to create sustainable value. I thank you for your trust and your attention.

Thank you, Laurent. Let's now welcome [indiscernible] who is going to present the audited report. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, I have the pleasure to present on behalf of the Board of statutory auditors, KPMG and the what, the reports we've prepared for you for the fiscal year 2025. The report submitted for your approval cover the annual and consolidated financial statements, regulated agreements and resolutions regarding capital transactions. They have been made available to you by the company and are included in the 2025 universal registration document. I'm going to summarize the main points of this document for you. Regarding our reports on the annual and consolidated financial statements, which are the subject of the first and second resolutions we certified the annual and consolidated financial statements. fiscal year ended on December 31, 2025, are in compliance with their respective accounting standards and present a true and fair view of the results, financial position and assets of the company and the group at the end of the 2025 fiscal year.

As part of our engagement, we pay particularly attention to certain key audit matters that we consider most significant in forming our opinion either because they involve significant estimates or judgments or due to the complexity of the information systems. In this regard, we've considered for the annual and consolidated financial statements that revenue recognition for telecom activities the measurement of provisions related to major legal disputes and tax reassessments and the initial measurement of the provision for the dismantling of the copper network in France constitute key audit matters to which are added for the annual financial statements, the valuation of equity investments and goodwill and for the consolidated financial statements. The valuation of goodwill for certain cash-generating units as part of impairment[indiscernible]

Regarding the fourth resolution of your general meeting, we have issued a report on regulated agreements. We hereby inform you that we have not been notified of any authorized agreements entered into force during the past fiscal year that are subject to your general meeting approval. Furthermore, we informed that an agreement entered into force during the the fiscal year, which had already been approved after the 2025 fiscal year. In connection with the special session of the meeting, we've issued 3 reports regarding resolutions of rising transactions that may affect your company's capital. We've issued a report on the authorization to grant existing or future performance-based stock options to executive offices and certain employees of the Orange Group pursued the 15th resolution. A report on the delegation of authority regarding the of shares or complex securities reserved for participants of company savings plans under the resolution.

A report on the delegation of authority to reduce capital through the cancellation of shares pursuant to the 17th resolution. These reports contain no specific comments or observations and we will prepare additional reports, if necessary, when your Board of Directors exercises these authorizations. Lastly, resolution A proposed by the orange actioned investment funds. [indiscernible] amendment to the [indiscernible]. We have no comments to make on the information provided in the Board of Directors supplementary report, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your attention.

We will listen to Christel Heydemann, CEO.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. Good afternoon, one and all. here at [indiscernible] for those who are following us at a distance, are very happy to be here during the this new general meeting with the management team. It's a great opportunity to share our results, our strategy and our ambitions for the years to come. This general meeting is a special moment because it's a great opportunity for me to thank you for being here today, but also thank you for your support. You are the shareholders and you've supported the activities of your group. And thank you for trusting us. I'd also like to thank from the bottom of my heart and in a very warm manner, the Chairman of our Board of Directors, and that's[indiscernible] .

Dear Chairman, I'd like to thank you for being that demanding for this momentum that you've given at the level of the Board during your term of office. You've always been very much involve things from height. And this has been very precious for our company in a period that has gone through deep transformation. This dual that is ours -- that we've had over the past 4 years has been essential in terms of stability trust and the correct functioning of our gowns, the quality of our discussions that we're always direct that we're fluid and demanding and the careful preparation of the Board meetings have contributed to the quality of our functioning as group. Personally also, I'd like to say that you have human skills that are outstanding. Your relations to others are really good. you have a sense of the general interest, and you've always been here to serve the company. Thanks to these skills, I'm going say that working with you with something very precious for me. Thank you very much dear [indiscernible].

Now 2025 was a really good vintage for Orange, and this the end of our strategic plan called Lead the Future, it was launched in '22. And thanks to this plan, Orange strengthened its position as the leader in the telco business in Europe and on all of our markets. We're the #2 telco operator in Europe far before the other competitors in terms of revenue, but also a number of clients. Our brand is strong and seen is strong because we always rated #2 if you look at all the telcos in the world. Leadership in the deployment [indiscernible] is undisputed with 100 million homes that can be connected to fibers.

We made strong strategic choices. And as we said before, amongst those, the choice to opt infrastructures when others decided to sell them. The choice of diversification in cybersecurity services as well, which is a sector that's booming, which is a good fit with the core business of ours. But also our investments in Africa and the Middle East that started more than 15 years ago. Today, the EMEA area Africa, that is the Middle East and Africa, is the growth engine of the company, and we've had a 2-digit growth over the past 12 months. We've also decided to consolidate our positions in Europe with our operations in Belgium and Romania.

And more recently in Spain, where we set [indiscernible], the second biggest operator in the country. the most active operator in terms of industrial consolidation. Our strategic vision is confirmed when you look at our solid results. Our today is a neat play in the world. And year in, year out, we strengthened our positions, our leading positions on the main markets. We are stronger, but also we have a simpler group. We've refocused our business and our core business is an operator. We've reviewed and simplified our in-house processes, and we've also looked at efficiency plans. Today, we have a business model that combines the fact that we are a big group, and we are demanding and the local agility of our local businesses that means we're fast and executing. We've deeply changed our B2B activities, and we're accelerating in cybersecurity in a digital context that's changing with new risks. And finally, Laurent talked about our results in 2025. As you've seen, we've overshot in terms of financial results. Our group is more solid together with a high level of performance. On this backdrop, we're building our future, particularly proud of the work done by the teams of orange, 123,500 men and women always guide and support our clients in their digital journey, and they're always committed and professionals. I must say that this momentum belongs to an environment that's more and more uncertain and volatile due to geopolitical risks and tensions, the new tech breakthroughs and technological and climate changes. With AI, our business models are changing today and the way we work as well. And this leads us to asking essential questions such as ethics, security and the controlled data.

With Gen AI, we have an increased level of risk of manipulation, deep fakes as a patient of identity, separate attacks, where security is something essential for us in our children. [indiscernible], the Head of Innovation, will tell you more about this in a minute. In addition, with more climate events, we've seen that it is very important to be resilient as far as our infrastructures are concerned. It's also our duty to have good continuity of services. Therefore, I'd like to share a number of beliefs that we have. Number one, Orange provides essential connections in all the geographies where we operate. Number two, in this world, it's more and more fragmented. Our diversity is our wealth. And our business model is multi-local, and this is our strength. My third belief is that Europe is not missing out on either talent or capital, but what we miss is a good regulatory [indiscernible] that would allow for consolidation, which is [indiscernible] business. Over the past 20 years, the market has been too fragmented. We have hyper competition. Therefore, the European operations have been weakened. And this is [indiscernible] down. We can't invest in the long run. Without any solid European operator, we can't have the digital sovereignty that we need in Europe.

The EU has to be mobilized and ready to drive as much value that it can with a single market by focusing on simplification and consolidation by reviewing the consolidation rules so that we would have more M&A. This is essential as well as the implementation of the recommendations of the [indiscernible] report. This is indefensible because what's at stake, it's trust in this world of uncertainties. As has always been the case, the objective for Orange is to link up people into facility communication. This link based on human beings is that the heart of what we do, trust for us is a unique competitive advantage. That's how we stand out. This is why this is at the heart of trust the future. The new strategic plan launched early '26. This is anchored in strong beliefs and it is based on the successes of our past plan. Thus, we have 3 strategic ambitions. We want to be close to our clients. We want to grow through innovation, and we want to excel at scale.

The first ambition is based on a simple belief that is we have to meet the needs and expectations of our clients. Together with them, we'll build a lasting relation based on trust in their journey with Orange. To do this, we'll use 3 priorities. We want to offer them a more digital and simpler experience, thanks to AI. We want to have more loyalty and better customer commitment and differentiate, thanks to trust. We also want to create new growth relays by supporting connections for our customers at home, at work and when they're roaming and also entertainment on a daily basis. Our second ambition is to create growth through innovation. Therefore, we'll be using the main strength of our group. That is the cloud of our brand, the size of our customer base and the quality of our networks.

Based on that, we'll speed up the development of new offerings to the general public on the basis of safety at home, transfer of money that will be secured and also the production of the youngest. We're also investing in trusted offerings for companies on the cloud, but also AI. Cybersecurity is, therefore, key in this strategy. Orange CyberDefense today is the #1 European player with 3,200 experts in 12 countries and more than 50,000 organizations that are protected on a daily basis. By 2030, our objective is clear. In 100% of the countries where we operate, we want to have a modular offer for cybersecurity for the general public for companies and also for us. And finally, our third ambition is to make the best of the size of our group to strengthen our technological leadership and our efficiency.

Our position as a leader in connections in each of the countries where we operate is a major asset. The network is at the heart of the telco business and their resilience is our #1 priority to make sure that we're really resilient. We have major programs that in modernizing our networks like this decommissioning of copper in France and also putting an end to the 2G and 3G networks in Europe. To do this at scale, we'll be using an ecosystem with technological partners, the best ones because we have the critical size. And therefore, we can federate them throughout the value chain. This momentum is going to be a good booster to better integrate AI in all of our business lines. the AI also is embedded in our daily practice, thanks to our 1,500 experts. And thanks to our AI factories and data factories, AI will help us have a better customer experience. And what's its key websites stake rather than EUR 600 million additional in terms of additional value by 2028. And then we are solid financially before 2028.

Our guidelines are very clear. We want to create lasting value. This is what's going to guide our choices in the company. And therefore, we can buy 100% of this transaction will be over before the end of the quarter. And our project in France is to consolidate a case on the SFR dossier. -- the 17th of April, we've been negotiating exclusively with the group Altice to acquire SFR with Bouygues Telecom and [indiscernible]

With this, we'll be able to consolidate the good monitoring of strategic infrastructures in France will strengthen our investments in resilience of high-throughput networks in cybersecurity but also innovation and new technologies, such as AI and will preserve a good competitive ecosystem to the benefit of our consumers. In addition to this, we want to give the best EPS to the shareholders with this progressive increase in dividends with a CAGR that we expect a bit more than 3% between '25 and '28 and thanks to a strict policy in the field of capital expenditure. Thanks to this plan, we'll be able to strengthen our leeway, financial leeway and the positioning of the group before solid results due to collective endeavor. We have 13,500 people who work for us. They are the ones, thanks to which we've succeeded. Their commitment is still strong in '25, and they still track the group, the trust level has gone up 7 points. More than 80% of our people are proud to work for Orange, which is an important number in a business where talent retention is something is central.

This is giving us a strategic asset and strengthens our stability. I'd like to thank you for the fact that you've included more women in our teams. Women represent 36% of management positions and 25% of our technical jobs are in the hands of women. With our teams, our collective challenge now is to support the transformation of skills and working methods connected to the revolution of AI. I'd like to thank the men and women who work for us and we've done that already, more than 80,000 people have been trained in AI at orange, 100,000 use our own Gen AI tools. This really shows that our training program works well and that we're fully committed to make sure that the group changes. Of course, we'll have to do this in a responsible manner and in a sustainable manner so that we can reconcile technological performance, operating efficiency and good control on the environmental impact of the company. And therefore, we have carbon objectives as a telco operator, we have a request, which is to be resilient, which is necessary. We have, therefore, a dual commitment. First, we have to reduce our carbon footprint our objective is to reduce the footprint by 45%, reducing GHGs by 2030. And this is in keeping with our strong commitment, which is to reach net 0 in 2040. That is 10 years ahead of the recommendations for other industrial players. We will decarbonize the energy business in Africa and Middle East. Thanks to what we've done. We've been using more solar power to a level of 30%, and we'd like to reach 60% in 2030. We have also been recycling our mobile telephones. And for Scope 3, that has to go down, we need to work with all the players in the value chain.

Therefore, we've launched a program that has been supported by procurement for which the suppliers have to be committed to reducing emission levels. In addition to this, we have to prepare our adaptation strategy. In each country where we operate, we have to identify the weaknesses in addition to the service continuity plans, we have to come up with a portfolio of solutions to adapt and the climate dimensions being factored in, in the risk management plans. Apart from the environment, we have commitments for the society based on 2 pillars: first, to protect usages and digital inclusion. We are a trusted partner.

And Orange, before 2030, we'll have offerings that will move towards more responsible use of digital technology such as [indiscernible] or cybersecure launched in France last year. Our priority is very depending on the geographies, but we have 1 single objective is to make sure that digital is a factor for progress for all. In a world that's changing, we want to juggle with performance, innovation, responsibility and trust. We want to combine them. Thanks to the fact that we have mobilized teams, thanks to the trust of our clients and partners. We're going to continue this journey in a demanding way and I'd like to thank all of the management teams because they've been with me to take these challenges that we've had and that we're going to have.

Before I hand over to [indiscernible], I'd like to share you some images of what we've done in the field of AI. Thank you very much for your attention.

[Presentation]

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted to be here with you today to discuss the topic that has quickly become central to our professional and personal lives, artificial intelligence. To Orange artificial intelligence is nothing new. This is true strategic strength forged by more than 30 years of investment in research. With several hundreds of researchers dedicated to building expertise and ranging from natural language processing to mathematical optimization models long before generative AI became a mainstream topic. This experience gives us a lasting competitive advantage, allowing us to deeply understand technological disruptions and anticipating their impact on our business. Three years ago, [indiscernible] reached in a very short time, AI, particularly generative AI has gone from being a topic for experts to a reality for everyone. It is already only transforming our businesses, organizations and the way we work and the new phase is already beginning with the emergence of agent-based AI AI is now capable of understanding the requests, planning multiple actions, executing them more autonomously.

And by 2030, AI will be everywhere. In the face of this acceleration, one real question stands out. What kind of artificial intelligence do we have? We have a clear [indiscernible]. We want trustworthy AI drives progress. We designed it with a focus on core intelligence AI that doesn't replace units, but that helps them make better decisions, take better action and do their jobs better. And this trust is based on different principles. First, the way we work with our employees, more than 100,000 employees have already been trained on AI and use our internal AI. After first rollout at group level, we now have a system that makes it possible to have AI in our daily lives. It's already the case in different fields, legal field, fight against fraud, thanks to AI, we can analyze a great number of data. We can spot suspicious activities, and we can intervene mostly.

And the first analysis show how much productivity gains we have estimated at around 20% to 30% depending on the business. The impact of AI is also very visible in our relationship with customers. It makes journeys smoother in our contact centers, we want to reach 70% of resolution, thanks to AI by the first act. And this is part and parcel of a strategic plan. Charlie, the so conversational assistant is a clear illustration of that. It brings quicker responses, more targeted ones that are more in line with customers' needs. In networks, AI also plays an increasing role. It helped that [indiscernible] and reduce repair times also. We are preparing network architectures that are ready for AI with digital tools in the field.

By 2030, our networks will be increasingly smart, automated and capable to adapt in real-time teams and incidents. This dynamic also pools, the offer we have for companies. We develop solutions in-house. We try them in-house. And we have environment that has evolved to include the best progress, including the most recent sovereign agent AI we have a clear and sustainable approach, and that approach lies on 3 principles: Controlled, inclusive AI that uses trustworthy schemes responsibilities at the heart of our approach, and Orange is one of the pioneers in this field. We have an external sec committee. We have also ethics advisers, contact persons in each country to give a framework uses. Ethics must be [indiscernible] from the outset.

This goes hand in hand with the idea of control. AI opened several remarkable prospects, but the idea is not to use AI anytime, but only when it brings value with the most adapted solutions. Inclusion is another important pillar. We want AI for as many people as possible. This is why an has been carrying out work on African languages and has worked with Meta and open eye to help take into consideration languages like Wolf and Polar. We also have a novel tire in fine languages that is used. We have audio description services, drink sports and cultural events or the deduction of distress signals in real time. Lastly, trust in the eye lies on sturdy infrastructure that can protect data be in line with resilience and sovereignty demands, the boom of age and AI reinforces this. We have systems that are capable of making decisions on their own, but there are risk cells of cyber threats turning to that.

It is in this context that the overall cyber defense expertise will be key to secure AI uses and to protect the infrastructure. What counts at the end of the day is not technology per se. It is what helps us better understand, decide, create and at range we want to move in this direction, ambitiously with responsibly and with a strong belief, have AI at the service of a useful [indiscernible] progress. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, [indiscernible]. Thank you, Christel. It is now time for us to open the Q&A session. So of course, everyone here in the room can ask questions. But those following this meeting remotely can also send their questions.

[indiscernible], CEO and the members of the Executive Committee are available to answer these questions. In order to make discussions smooth, I'm going to ask you to please be brief when you ask your question. And we want to hear as many people as possible as many questions as possible. And before we start, let me remind you that we have an area dedicated to technical commercial issues or after sales matters in the [indiscernible] hallway the reception area. So don't hesitate to reach out to our Orange team. They are there for you and to answer any questions you may have. Let's start with the first question. Question number one.CMD insist on the fact that the 2028 target by on reasonable hypothesis that are nevertheless exposed to uncertainties and risks. Could you tell us what the weak link of the plan is if the international environment should the international environment become more adverse cost. Well, it's true, we live in an international atmosphere that is not adverse, but that is complex. And we reminded that -- we have a multi-local model. So by nature, our teams in the field are used to managing a complicated situations our business as our results is highly resilient in a macroeconomic environment that is under pressure. Of course, we live in an environment that is impacted by macro economy. It's impacted by potential supply chain disruptions or others, and we have to anticipate that and we do with our procurement department, with our hedging policy on the price of energy, for instance. By growth relays and the fundamentals of the group are quite impacted by the environment in which we live. So of course, we are faced with risks. But the work we're doing and the work of the Board is also to make sure that there's a balance. And today, even though we are in a very complicated geopolitical period, our results are steady and our guidance level has even gone up.

Next question, I have a comment and a question. First observation, I would like to congratulate the whole managing team for these results. Congratulations. Now what's next after Spain in terms of consolidation? France. In my presentation, Christa's presentation, I think that this was clear. We have a lot of work to do. A lot has been done already as reminded us. And as I said in my presentation, considerable work has been done to coordinate the 3 operators who submitted an offer on SFR and Altice, it took 18 years of work -- 18 months, sorry, of work to be aligned and it's quite difficult. It's quite unusual to have such a consortium to buy a competitor. So work has been done already. Some work is yet to be done and the next stage is clearly

[Audio Gap]

problem of diseases. And in France, we have [indiscernible] who work and have difficulties. I'd like to know what Orange is doing to help the caregivers of the company in terms of flexible working time, for instance, because it's going to be an increasing problem in the future. And third question is more an observation than a question. I'm quite surprised to see that such an important group is not showing in detail the performance shares and the breakdown. It would be interesting to have a precise presentation of that before we actually vote on them.

Thank you, [indiscernible] Regarding being a global leader in trustworthy solutions, you're right to say that attractive business in France, Europe, but we are there for our clients if we were in the world. We want to have cyber security services that are trusted and not many company know how [indiscernible] at global level, but Orange Business and Orange CyberDefense know how to do it. Regarding the caregivers and how to help them. It's a very relevant question, and it will become increasingly relevant with the aging of population in Europe. I don't have the exact figures and details.

We can some tube do have schemes today that help care gave us with lighter hours. We also have part-time work for the elderly in different schemes to help employees who are also caregivers. And regarding the presentation, I'll let you answer I'll answer the third question. The general meeting is also an opportunity to present our achievements. We have to make choices regarding the compensation of the channel management, what Gabriel said, was clear. We had to adapt the compensation of our CEO because he hadn't moved since she took office in 2022. The structure of this remuneration scheme hasn't changed. All the details are in the universal registration document. So we didn't give you all the details at the general meeting because you can refer to the document. Next question.

[indiscernible] I'm a member of CCL. I'm an individual shareholder. I have 2 questions. One about Orange cyberdefense, you're talking about revenue growth, right, but you're not saying much about profitability. Is this a profitable business? Question number two

Well, at the time when people talk about the share price or the total value of orange, that's EUR 50 billion, we're starting really at a low level, but couldn't we say that the best is yet to come given the number of clients you're acquiring 1 million counts acquired each month in Africa, I think. You said also you'd probably reach 400 million clients in 2028, more or less, if I got the message right. And [indiscernible] feeling that recently you've been insisting on the performance of your business in Africa. That's the different players on the market value, but have the impression that Orange is undervalued given the potential that the group has. Netflix has 350 million clients. Their market value is EUR 400 billion. I know it's a different group altogether, but see what I mean.

Well, that's interesting. Now as far as our [indiscernible] is concerned, we don't talk about the profitability of this line of business. It's included in what we call enterprises or B2B, that is our business and Orange cyber defense, but count on us. We communicate -- we report on the margins and margin improvements for both companies. We keep an eye on that. We monitor that. And these 2 lines of business are improving their margins regularly, steadily. Just the business itself on a very buoyant market. As far as the market value of the company is concerned, of course, with Laurent, we keep saying to the inventories that our group, well, we're not saying anything about the value of our company. We're not giving any outlook because the analysts will be working on our outlooks. It's their job after all. But if we take the example of Africa, it's been years. Orange has been organizing road shows with investors to talk about the potential we have in Africa. Well, communication is all about repeating the same message. We've had 12 quarters in a run with good performance and results. And this has given us the credibility of this business and its performance. Now of course, we couldn't compare ourselves with Netflix, but we have a [indiscernible] that says we want to build on the number of clients we have. We're targeting EUR 80 million by 2028. We started the 340 million clients. There aren't that many companies that serve 340 million clients. It's the case for our group. It's part of our strategic plan. We want to have loyal clients. We want to bring them more value, and we want to innovate so that we can capture more growth on the basis of trust, security, cybersecurity and many other thrusts that we're thinking about to diversify the client base. So you can see, we're going to continue and work on that. We're very happy to see that the group market value has gone up. We're working hard on that, and it's good to see that there's visible and tangible results. .

Thank you. Next question, please. [indiscernible] I am an individual shareholder. We talked about macroeconomic outlooks before. Now in case of conflict, I suppose that the copper network is more resilient than the mobile or the FTTH network, we saw that recently in Ukraine. Ukraine move towards satellite networks. And therefore, I was thinking about resilience is resilient something you factored in, in your decision when you decided to exit copper, and this represents more than EUR 1 billion in cost. Well, the copper network is resilient and as much as you use electricity to power the network. But if you take example of Mayo and the [indiscernible], copper was down because the posts were down, everything was destroyed. So it's a false idea to think that it's more resilient than fibers when you have civil engineering infrastructure that's down, it's destroyed, everything is destroyed. It is [indiscernible] We're working on complementary solutions and the Orange France teams are working on that. Today, we couldn't think of an environment where there would be no power outage or breakdowns or extreme events. We have to manage these events. And that's our responsibility. At that moment, we have to detect things that go wrong, inform the clients and come up with backup solutions for the clients. These could be based on spacecraft. That's why we're working with [indiscernible] and we have mobile solutions as well. As you can see, we have both fixed mobile and satellite businesses to be more resilient. At the end of '25 in France, we launched the first connectivity solution using satellites called SMS satellite on your mobile phone. And as you can see, we need several solutions should there be a conflict or a stream event.

Thank you. Next question, please. Thank you I'm an individual shareholder as well. Took me a little while to arrive here I could manage to get through easily. And well, anyway, as I was saying I have 2 questions to ask. Number one, there's some type of madness about AI nowadays and a lot of speculation about AI and mainly with the memory cards. Could this impact the group, the memory cards when they're more expensive, it's more complicated to have some on an individual device because they're used in data centers first.

Question number two, we work a lot in Ethiopia and Egypt. What about the spillovers of the war between Israel and Iran in the Middle East. Are you very careful about this so that you are not directly involved in these conflicts. Let me start with the cost availability of memory cards. This, of course, has an impact on us. Well, the memory cards today are used by the main data centers and the GPUs. And as we speak, Orange has seen price increases we have secured our procurement. It's not a one-off thing. It will take a lot of time for industrial groups to adapt to this environment. We are working on this. We want to have safe supplies or procurement. And also, we'd like to mitigate the impacts we have more circular economy as well, which is good. As you saw before, to reduce our carbon footprint. We're recycling the boxes or the [indiscernible] and that we either repair or recycle. And as far as mobile devices internals are concerned as well. Those who produce the mobile terminals, they'll have memory cards in the high-value telephones and perhaps not for telephones of a lower value. These are things we keep an eye on, and we track and we have a supply and procurement organization, which unfortunately, is very much used in these types of shortages, this is something that's included in our group trajectory. Now as far as the Middle East situation is concerned, when there are conflicts. And I know we're talking a lot about the situation in Iran, but we operated Mali, [indiscernible], but also close to the borders of Ukraine, which means that unfortunately, the heads of our countries and the team leaders are on these fronts. So the #1 priority is that everybody goes back home safe, protect them and their families. And for when there is a crisis, we take measures. Usually, the measures are similar to other companies' measures like few people working at home, telework, sometimes we help them leave the country. We hope the foreigners leave the country. Of course, nobody is allowed to travel abroad if these countries are in conflict, and we hear it's our obligation to serve and support our clients as well, which means that around Iran, we don't operate directly in the neighboring countries, but we have a foothold in Jordan. So we have teams in Jordan. They're used to this. We have Orange business teams in Dubai, in Israel or Lebanon, and unfortunately, they operate in complex environments, but we're taking all the necessary measures to protect them.

Usually, these people are the nationals from these countries. So we can't say we can remove them and we can ask them to live somewhere else because this is a conflict area. This is not desirable. This is not what they want but should this be the case, we would be here to help them. This is something we keep a close eye on. Now what about the impact of the Middle East conflict? Well, look at the price of energy, the price of oil, and this has an impact on our business as well in the Middle East and Africa area. In Europe, we use, as you know, electricity. But in the MEA area, we have mobile sites that require oil. And therefore, that's why we've been using more solar power on these sites because given the price in -- given the increase in oil prices, we invest a lot more in renewables and solar, which is a good thing, so that we reduce our carbon footprint.

Next question, please. [indiscernible], individual shareholder. Another question about AI, sorry. Edge computing is essential for AI -- industrial AI, I mean, and there are other European telcos like Telefonica or Deutsche Telekom or Vodafone that have said something on that and the monetization of such activity. What about Orange? Is this a real opportunity to stand out? What are the assets that you have in the group, so that this could be a new source of revenue, please. Well, this is complicated edge computing heads different types of definitions. If you discuss with the hyperscalers, well, for a hyperscaler, opening a data center in Bordeaux is edge computing. But if you -- we are talking about edge computing, if you discuss with other industrial groups, edge computing is what you have on your cell phone or on an industrial machine where people use the information. And then there's this new wave you see coming mainly from the U.S., we've seen usage cases where there's computing power that's more decentralized in the network so that we could meet the usage cases, and this would be the case in the U.S. and the UMs are working on that. there's what we call AI run. That is the run if people have connected glasses or telephones that would use AI all the time. We have innovation teams that are working on this. And as we speak -- well, first, what's very important to remember is there is such a thing as regulation. We can't all have glasses or goggles that would observe our surrounding environment. This is not allowed in Europe. Not now. It will take time. But these are important topics, of course. We brainstorm on that. I wouldn't say though that we would have revenue lands that is plans aiming at increasing our revenue from that source. But our teams are working on this. Thank you very much.

Next, please. Hello, dear Chairman, Madam CEO. I represent an individual shareholder. -- has always been since the company was floated that is at the time of France telecom, and she was a client of the group before that. Think about our rate anyway, she's asked me to ask a question. about the dismantlement of the copper network. This, of course, will have an impact on the pricing policy that's applied. That is what the clients will have to pay. When I looked into the numbers, there's been an increase that reached 70% over the past 5 years, which is huge. And should this continue next year, then the subscription for fixed lines would be more expensive than that of a box or STB [indiscernible] quantitive service is going down, and we'll have to pay more. So it's a strategic choice. Will France Telecom continue, that is it only those who have these boxes for fixed lines, land lines that will have to pay or couldn't we distribute this price or this cost overall clients because now that we have copper, France Telecom has become a leader on the market. That's the question.

Well, well, well. We're not going to look too much into the past. But [indiscernible], something we are proud of. Our teams and the [indiscernible] become teams, we are very happy. They deployed it in 40 years. Orange is proud because we did that in 15 years. It's fit it's incredible. But the copper network is being emptied today. We have more than 10 million fiber subscribers today at Orange. And France has moved to fiber. So we're decommissioning copper networks in relations that fiber is a success. And those who move to fiber don't want to retrace their steps do they? The problem is that today, we have a copper network, which serves a lower number of customers. And the cost is still high because it's getting out. There are people who are robbing the infrastructure, if I can say, the number of theft is increasing. And if we want to meet our common objectives we have an obligation. We want to be more efficient. And commercially speaking, the fiber network is a success. That's why we're decommissioning the copper network. We're not the only ones, all incumbents are doing this in Europe. All the telcos, the incumbents, the Spaniards started earlier than us. Here again, that's because we've succeeded with fiber. That's why we can stop the copper network. If you look at the prices for copper, prices are going up. but there's a regulator in Europe. The price for unbundling is the same for all operators. These are regulated by what we call accept in France. And we can increase the unbundling price because we recognize that we have few customers. And therefore, the price signal that's going up for copper something very important because today, you have a fiber subscription, which sometimes is less expensive than the copper subscription. But we guide our clients. We help them migrate to either technology. The quality of migrations improved considerably. It wasn't always the case, I would say, when there was strong adoption of fiber technology, but there's no doubt. From the industrial point of view, it doesn't make sense to have two land networks in parallel for land lines, I mean. Thank you. Next.

Congratulations. We've been waiting for this for the past 15 years. Now we have 3 operators, good should have been quite natural. Now I have a question. To start with, Orange was the result of the merger with the British company. Do you still have a business in the U.K. Is this an interest market? And I have another question. You are the highways of data with video conferencing, with images, imaging, connectivity. This requires more broadband increased traffic. What you're going to do in the future in the U.S., for instance, there are huge data centers that need to cool those down. What about power supply? Is that something that you're considering?

There's going to be problems you see in terms of ESG, that is water consumption, electricity consumption, all nuisances. These are very noisy centers. And that's something important and sensitive more and more throughput and data that's going to be hypersensitive.

Consolidation in France has not yet been finalized. We are working on it, but it's not finalized yet, even though it's one of our priorities as we said. To answer your question, no, we don't have any more business priority in U.K., the brand Orange was created in the U.K., that's true. And then we had the JV with Deutsche Telekom in England that was then bought back by British Telecom. So we no longer have any business in England. And to date, we don't have any projects to expand to the U.K. today or tomorrow. But as we've been said from the outset, our value creating a strategy will have to be through Romania, Belgium, Spain and all of these markets on which we are focusing. And now we're focusing on the French market. As we said, we're not against geographical expansion. But today, we are more turned towards the African market. will in terms of expansion because the European market is already very mature and there are no real opportunities. Regarding data centers, you are right to say that today, data centers are -- well the needs are booming. We see this in the traffic, an networks, plus 10% to 30% in terms of traffic depending on where you're looking at things. It's all pulled by the cloud. It's called by all the uses that we're familiar with today. the major players in hyperscalers stated clearly, their goals in terms of reducing the carbon footprint, will either they are pushing back the dates or the going back on their targets. So that's why we are working on energy efficiency for all of our footprint, so when I presented our carbon trajectory, does include the efficiency in the way we consume and calculate the data storage. All of this is included in our trajectories. When we talk about responsible AI and as [indiscernible] mentioned it earlier, we want to make sure that the uses we developed are adopted. So sometimes, we need very powerful technology -- in most cases, AI that would consume a lot of water, a lot of energy and a lot of resources. If it doesn't create much value, we consider that it's not interesting. We want frugal AI adapted to our users, and that's really at the heart of our strategy.

Last question. [indiscernible] and then I'll accept one last question after those 2, and we'll move on to the vote of the resolutions. I have a couple of questions. past one. What are the governance mechanisms that can allow operate the projects in terms of performance, operational efficacy and environmental impact. My second question is more on underwater cables today in terms of geopolitics, we see that on the water cables are the invisible backbone of our digital sovereignty. I'd like to know how Orange is assessing the risks of these cable being cut down and what means are being put in place to reinforce the resilience of these infrastructures regarding the implementation of AI, we have a team, and we've had a central team for years steering all of the AI use cases. And it's set up a governance system. So we're looking at all of the use cases, the impact of the use cases, the cost, and we also look at our internal tool and see what the carbon footprint is because we want to educate the users. Now this is swiftly changing technology, and we look at each use case via the central team. We review all these matters at the highest level of the company. We review these matters also with the Board of Directors. We also have [indiscernible] council that we use in some cases, whenever we have the ethical questions that are raised, for instance, and we have external people who come in [indiscernible] want to make sure that we ask ourselves the right questions. So that's the way we work. Now we were talking about [indiscernible] AI and questions it raises, and we are discussing these matters with other companies, of course, too. Regarding on the water cables, they are several questions within one question. More than 98% of Internet traffic goes through submarine cables even though we all think is through mobile waves because we all have mobile phones these infrastructures, the underwater cables are extremely strategic today has of these cables that are being cutoff in the Red Sea that happened. It slows down the Internet traffic, but for most -- for all users, these incidents are completely invisible. In 2024, we also had off the shores of Cote d'Ivoire [indiscernible] quick that really set the countries because several cables, 4 underwater cables were cut at the same time. So there was a power outage at large scale. So we keep investing in these issues. Last week, we said we were launching a new cable project to connect Eastern and Western Africa. We need to multiply the connection points to the international network. And if we want to be resilient, the only way is to have redundancy so to work in remote countries [indiscernible], they need this redundancy. And France, because of its cost line is really the cross rows between Europe and Asia and also between Europe and the American continent and have teams are working with Orange Marine to repair on the water cables. That's their job.

Next question. I would like to come back to the Altice sale project. I know that different operators are interested in different fields, B2B [indiscernible] in something else. I'd like to know who's interested in Altice.

Well, it's not really about being interested. We have a [indiscernible] agreement that was made public in October 2025, in which we submitted an offer together. So there's an agreement between the 3 operators. And as the Chairman said earlier, it's not a small thing to have 3 competitors gather around the table and find a consortium in line, of course, with competition rules. So we agreed with the vendor. We are under discussions. Now regarding MVNO [indiscernible] matter between Orange and Bouygues today. So Orange is one of the players who is going to recover part of MVNO. To complement what you just said, Christel, if you allow me, that was a lot of work that was tiered by Christel [indiscernible] counterparts to competitors. And when you look at things closely, you see it's quite balanced. Everyone should actually make sure the balance is respected that we comply with the competition rules. We are 3 competitors [indiscernible] making sure that the rules are abided by. And we have to make sure also that we are always below the acceptability threshold given by the competition authorities. So it was a lot of work, it lasted a year, 1.5 years to carry out this work. And now the Orange assets is -- are clearly distributed.

Now last question, maybe a couple of last questions, and we'll stop here if you agree. So this question row 4.

Hello. I'm a bit impressed. I would like to thank you. I'm [indiscernible]. I'm a shareholder, as many of you, and I'm also an employee. So I'd like to thank my supervisors my managers for the quality of the exchanges we've had and we're going to have. Now what I'm going to say is not going to be welcomed by some shareholders. I'm glad there's a security service. Don't you think there is better there are better promises to make to shareholders. Many of us as employees are retraining. I myself have retrained in AI. So don't you think there are better promises to make than simply increasing dividend because value is created by employee human beings. We're talking a lot about technical matters, copper, fiber. But behind all this, they are human beings. And this value we are sharing is created by Orange employees. So I think they are better promises to make them a mere increase in dividends. Both can go hand in hand, of course. I just want to make sure that we underscore value creation. Value will be there because we see that the price of the shares is increasing day by day. I believe in my company. I believe in the future, I love my company. I'm a shareholder, just like any one of you. So I do want to have a return on investment. So I do understand your position, but I'm here also as an employee, and I want to defend the value produced by Orange employees. I'd like to answer this question if Christel allows me to do so. At the beginning of my presentation, I'm mature to talk about the stock price developments. I talked about this heritage, we have 3.8 billion in heritage that Orange employee shareholders have in their hands. And year after year, we try and manage to share that value to distribute that value amongst employees. And this distribution has remained quite stable throughout the years, even though dividends haven't gone up recently. And we have many different stakeholders. We have employees, we have our clients, we have our shareholders, the state also French State, it's also a stakeholder, and we make sure that year after year, the share of this added value is allocated to each of these stakeholders, but in a stable way. So there haven't been any great imbalances, nothing detrimental to our employees on the country. And there is stability of the added value that is allocated to our employees. And I also reminded and Christel did so as well as Laurent, we reminded that we massively invest in the future to prepare the future. Today, in Europe, we are the #1 investors in fiber with more than 100 million sockets installed. And we have EUR 100 million fiber facilities and only 15 million clients. So we invested so as to increase the number of fiber connections in the future. and with the Board -- the Chairman of the Board and the CEO wants is a right balance when it comes to compensating the different stakeholders. So there's no conflict between employees and shareholders. We really want to make sure that both are on the part.

Last question. Thank you. Key infrastructure has always been very important. At Orange, we talked about fire on the water cables. So I'd like to come back to AI infrastructure. I'd like to know how today once we secure AI infrastructure as much as possible. AI infrastructure today. If you look at who invests in this infrastructure, well, first of all, what do we talk about when we talk about AI infrastructure because there's a lot of plumbing and electricity involved. We talk about the major data centers at Orange today, we own data centers. We have upgraded in France. We've invested in huge data centers to upgrade them with these data centers today are not state-of-the-art. AI specialists would need a more upgraded infrastructure and language models today require huge investments if we want to keep driving investments. But we're preparing. We've invested a little to have our own infrastructure to rent capabilities and to do everything we've described and everything, but we know presented, but it doesn't require the huge calculation power we can see in China or in the U.S., for instance. Now that raises another question in Europe, digital infrastructure are important. And can we think about AI without a European AI? And the answer is no. That's why we are highly committed. We work a lot with different partners, not only European partners. We work with our French partners in the cybersecurity field. [indiscernible] in cybersecurity. We are also working with a French tech start-up on AI matters. So our role is also to support AI systems, the development and the construction of a European AI as well. And we were talking about this in Africa also last week because the African continent also wants to build on AI and wants to design an African AI. I suggest we stop the discussion here and move on to the vote and I'm going to hand over to [indiscernible], Secretary General of Orange; and [indiscernible] the Board, and he's going to moderate this voting sequence.

Thank you, Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. Let's now move on to the vote on the resolutions that have been submitted to you. As always, we're going to present a film that will explain how to vote and how the voting box works.

[Foreign Language]

Before we start, resolutions [indiscernible] will terminate the mandate of a director. And therefore, the only one that's going to be adopted is the resolution that [indiscernible] greatest number of votes in favor. The other one would be null and void. Now the results will be given at the end of resolution #22.

Now we can start voting the final quorum, 82.56%. We will start voting on Resolution #1. Resolution #1, the statutory financial statements.

[Voting]

Time is up. Adopted 99.98%. Number two, approval of consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended 31st December '25. You can start voting now.

[Voting]

Carried. 99.99%. Number three, allocation of income for the fiscal year ended 31st of December. You can start voting now.

[Voting]

Carried. 98.18%. Number four, regulated agreements. Start voting now, please.

[Voting]

Time is up. Results carried, 98.49. Number 5, reappointment of a director, Mr. Jacques Pierre.

[Voting]

Time is up. Carried, 98.34%. Congratulations, Mr. [indiscernible] Resolution #6, reappointment of a director, Ms. [indiscernible] You can vote now.

[Voting]

Carried 97.67%. Congratulations Madam [indiscernible] Number seven, approval of information related to 2025 compensation of corporate officers as stated in the corporate governance report. You can start voting now.

[Voting]

Time is up. Carried, 97.78% Number eight, approval of the 2025 compensation components for our CEO. Please vote.

[Voting]

Time is up. Carried, 96.25%, benign approval of the 2025 compensation for the Chairman.

[Voting]

The result is that it's carried 99.3%. Number 10, approval of the compensation policy for 2026 of our CEO.

[Voting]

Times up. Carried, 81.74%. Number 11, approval of the compensation policy for 2026 as the Chairman of the Board, you can start voting now.

[Voting]

Times up. Carried 99.3%. Resolution #12, approval of the compensation policy for 2026 of Directors. The clock is ticking.

[Voting]

Time is up again. Carried 99.96%. Number 13, authorization to be granted to the Board of Directors to buy or transfer company shares.

[Voting]

Times up. Carried 98.7%. Resolution #14, amendment of Article 13 of the Articles of Association to take into account the new gender balance on the book. You can start voting now.

[Voting]

Carried 99.88%. Number 15, authorization granted to the Board of Directors to award free shares to executive corporate officers and certain group employees working for Orange. You can vote now.

[Voting]

Times up carried 98.50%. Resolution 16, delegation of authority to the Board of Directors to issue shares or complex securities reserved for members of savings plan. You can vote now.

[Voting]

Carried 99.12%. Resolution #17, authorization given to the Board of Directors to reduce the capital by canceling shares. You can start voting now.

[Voting]

Time is up. Carried, 85.6%. Number 18. [indiscernible] for formalities Clock is ticking.

[Voting]

Time is carried 99.99%. Resolution #19, ratification of the amendment of Article 21 of the Articles of Association to reflect the new record date for the establishment of shareholders. Please vote.

[Voting]

Time's up. Carried, 99.99%. Resolution #20, decision to terminate the mandate of Mr. Pierre Chaussoneaux to be aligned on the new gender diversity rules.

[Voting]

Time's up. 0.72% in favor. Now 21 decision to terminate mandate of Mr. Vincent Gimeno for the same reasons.

[Voting]

Time is up. What we have is 0.68% in favor. #22, termination of the mandate of Mr. Sébastien Crozier for the same reasons. You can vote now.

[Voting]

Time is up. Now we have 99.94% in favor. Therefore, this is the resolution #22 is carried. Therefore, Mr. Sébastien Crozier will terminate his mandate for Ms. [indiscernible]

Resolution #23, appointment of the director representing employee shareholders, Mrs. Nadia Zak Calvet and the replacement is none. You can vote now.

[Voting]

Time is up. Carried 99.78%. So Mr. Chairman, you are still the Chairman.

Thank you very much, Nicolas. That's the end of our combined general meeting. Thank you again. Thank you for coming, such a turnout here at Saint-Honoré in Paris. On your behalf, I'd like to thank the Orange team, thanks to which we were in a position to hold the general meeting on the 25th of May 2027, we'll have another general meeting chaired by Frédéric Sanchez. Thank you very much. See you soon.

I beg your pardon. Can I have your undivided attention, please? There's another resolution that our General Secretary has forgotten. We have to vote on this alternative resolution. I'm awfully sorry. I'm awfully sorry, my bad. I'm sorry about this. This is why we're going to change the chair. Nicolas?

No, no, I'm sorry. I'm awfully sorry. That's true. We have an alternative resolution that is amendment to Resolution #15 to proceed with the free allocation of shares to all staff or reserved employee share offer. We have to start voting on this. I am so sorry.

[Voting]

Time is up. Rejected, 81.21%.

We are so sorry about this. Yes. This is what the French would call a happening that as we said, the meeting is over, and it wasn't over. Thank you again. We'll meet again next year, 25th of May, I think. Yes. Is that really the 25th of May '27, chaired by Frédéric Sanchez. Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of the day.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

Hello to all of you. Welcome to Orange Q1 2026 Results Conference. For your information, this conference will be recorded. The call today will be hosted by Christel Heydemann, our CEO; Laurent Martinez, our CFO, with other members of Orange Executive Committee for the Q&A session after the presentation. So let's start with the presentation.

Christel Heydemann, the floor is yours.

Good morning. Thank you for joining our Q1 results presentation. Before getting into our Q1 results, I would like to mention that last week in France, we announced entering into exclusive negotiation with the Altice France Group for the acquisition of SFR jointly with Bouygues Telecom and the Free-iliad Group. Our joint offer reflects a total enterprise value of EUR 20.35 billion for the Altice France assets under consideration. Orange's share within the split of price and value between buyers would be around 27%. This transaction would help sustain and strengthen the entire digital economy and the telecommunications sector in France. There is no certainty though, that this process will result in an agreement. In parallel, in Spain, we already received the approval of the antitrust authorities, and we are confirming a closing of MASORANGE transaction in Q2.

Back to our results. The year 2026 started with the presentation of our new strategic plan, Trust the future. This plan was well received, and we are now fully focused on its execution. In Q1, we reported very strong financial results with group revenues up by plus 3.5% and EBITDAaL up at plus 6.6%. This is fueled by a very robust retail services performance, growing plus 1.1% in France and in Europe and plus 13% in Middle East and Africa. We also accounted for significant positive wholesale nonrecurring items in France. These items were mostly anticipated and therefore, already integrated into our guidance.

Excluding these effects, the underlying growth in group revenues is circa plus 2.5% and circa plus 3.5% in EBITDAaL. Based on these solid results, we are upgrading our EBITDAaL group guidance from circa 3% to above 3%, while fully confirming the rest of the '26 guidance.

Lastly, I would like to emphasize that in the current volatile environment, Orange remains very solid and highly resilient. We closely monitor conflict situations, particularly in the Middle East, always prioritizing the safety of our employees. Additionally, we are well hedged regarding energy in Europe and benefit from the high level of solar power adoption in Africa and Middle East.

As a result, our exposure to the indirect impacts of the crisis is limited.

Let's now review our strong Q1 results. Revenues reached EUR 10.1 billion and grew by 3.5%, driven by retail growth across all geographies and the expected positive wholesale nonrecurring items in France. EBITDAaL is up 6.6% this quarter, reflecting growth in retail services, continuous efficiency efforts and the positive effect of wholesale nonrecurring items. We maintained discipline on eCapEx with eCapEx to sales around 15%, in line with our guidance. This solid first quarter gives us strong confidence in achieving our 2026 guidance with an EBITDAaL growth now expected to be above 3%.

Q1 was a dynamic quarter marked by the launch of several strategic Trust the future initiatives in our 3 core ambitions. Customer intimacy, innovative growth and excellence at scale. In customer intimacy, we introduced 2 AI assistants in France. Sharlie, a 24/7 conversational assistant dedicated to answering our Sosh clients and my AI assistant, MAIA, an assistant helping Orange sales teams better understand customer needs. We also launched new loyalty programs in France.

Regarding innovative growth, we announced more than 10 innovative offers at the Orange Business Summit, including Europe's first anti-drone-as-a-service solution, sovereign collaboration tools and an AI-powered cybersecurity offer. In terms of excellence at scale, Orange Business announced a partnership with Tech Mahindra to accelerate digital transformation for our international customers. And in France, we began decommissioning 2G and copper networks closing 900,000 households while implementing our new organization to boost efficiency. Trust the future is in action.

I will now hand over to Laurent for the business review, starting with France on Slide 8.

Thank you, Christel. Moving to France. The competitive environment remained generally stable on the high end and slightly improved on the low end. In the first quarter, our efficient commercial strategy led to robust commercial performance. We recorded the lowest churn on fixed broadband and convergence since Q2 2022, and mobile churn improved by more than 1 point. Net adds remained strong with 55,000 in fixed, a record since Q4 2021, 40,000 in mobile and 15,000 in convergence. Convergence ARPU is up by EUR 0.3 year-on-year and fixed broadband ARPU is stable, both sustained by our cross-sell strategy. Mobile-only ARPU is down by EUR 0.8, still reflecting the mix effect related to the competitive landscape over the past year.

On the financial slide, revenues reached EUR 4.4 billion, up by 2.3% year-on-year. Retail services, excluding PSTN, increased by 1.1%. The strong performance of fixed broadband and convergence, driven by our focus on our customer loyalty and multiservice approach offset the expected decline in PSTN services this quarter. We increased our NPS to above 34, widening the gap versus the #2 to 11 points while reducing churn across all segments.

On the wholesale side, revenues increased by 6%, mainly due to the positive impact of circa EUR 100 million wholesale nonrecurring items, which includes significant cost financing anticipated in our plan. The strong results give us confidence in achieving our target of stable plus EBITDAaL growth in 2026 in France.

Turning to Africa and Middle East, which continues to deliver a very strong performance, demonstrating our positive momentum. Revenues increased double digits for the 12th quarter in a row, driven by money, 4G, fixed broadband and B2B. Remarkably, 2/3 of our countries are up double-digit growth in terms of revenues. Looking forward, we are very comfortable on our high single-digit EBITDAaL growth outlook for 2026.

Let's continue with Europe. Europe posted a solid start of the year with revenue up 2.2% year-on-year. Services remained strong, fueled by good commercial momentum, balanced between volume and value. Over the quarter, net add remains robust with 66,000 in mobile, 51,000 in FTTH and 21,000 in convergence. Convergence ARPU is up by 4.2% in Q1 in Poland. IT&IS is up by 12%, mainly driven by Belgium and Poland. Wholesale growth was driven notably by low margin activities such as international interconnection. Thanks to this robust result, we confirm the low to mid-single-digit EBITDAaL growth outlook for 2026.

Moving to Orange Business. In a market environment that remains very challenging, IT&IS revenue growth was driven by strong equipment sales and sustainable growth within Orange Cyber Defense of more than 9% in the quarter. We announced a new partnership with Tech Mahindra and the launch of 14 new innovative offers at the Orange Business Summit. Overall, we continue to actively drive the transformation of Orange Business, and we confirm our outlook for continued improvement.

Turning to MASORANGE. The acquisition process, as you know, is well advanced with the recent clearance by the antitrust authorities, and we are expecting a closing in the second quarter of this year. Total revenues are up by 1.2% year-on-year, driven by B2B equipment sales and wholesale services, offsetting the expected mix impact on the services in a challenging market environment. Over 1 year, total clients is up significantly with over 400,000 mobile lines, with a limited reduction during the first quarter of 2026. Synergies are on track and the 2026 outlook remains confirmed.

I will now hand over to Christel for the guidance update.

Thank you, Laurent. We are proud of this very strong Q1 results, which mark a very solid start for our new Trust the future plan announced a few weeks ago. Our 2026 guidance, excluding MASORANGE for now, is fully confirmed and is upgraded on EBITDAaL, mainly thanks to a very strong performance of Africa Middle East. The expected impacts of the reconsolidation of MASORANGE on our guidance are confirmed as well. We expect the closing of the MASORANGE operation in Q2 2026 and plan to provide further details alongside our H1 results. Laurent, Jerome and I are now ready for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] So the first question is coming from Ondrej Cabej ek from UBS.

Hello, can you hear me? Hello?

[Technical Difficulty]

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay. So 2 questions for me, please. First of all, congratulations on entering exclusive talks. And I was hoping you can give us color on key aspects of the second bid such as whether it is now largely a legal formality and you are confident this new offer will be accepted. What has allowed you to increase the bid by roughly 20%, whether there is any update on the regulatory process and time line and so forth? That would be the first question.

Second question, please, is really on the French competitive dynamics where the retail ex PSTN trends have improved sequentially. So if you could please speak as to what is driving this? How sustainable it is? And whether now that there is a deal in place, we can expect maybe continued rationalization in the French market already?

Thank you. On the Altice negotiation. As you know, we submitted a revised offer compared to the offer we had submitted in October. And of course, in October, we had very limited information, since then we entered into due diligence in January, February and have been able to submit this revised offer, which has been accepted by the seller given the granted exclusive negotiation.

In terms of what's now planned, as you know, we have this exclusive window until mid-May. There is, of course, a lot of usual items to be discussed, legal aspects as well as commercial as usual in this type of transaction. So I won't provide more details. As you know, this is a complex transaction given we are not bidding as Orange. We are bidding as part of a consortium, and we have also agreements within the consortium. But of course, as soon and if we reach an agreement and sign an MOU in the next weeks, we will, of course, provide you with more details.

We are -- as we said, our share in the transaction is reflecting the value created and the price, 27%, which is unchanged compared to our offer in October. And then in terms of what has been driving the price evolution, a lot of aspects. Just to give you one item. Back in October, we were considering an asset deal. We are now talking of a share transaction for the acquisition of SFR shares. So that's just one item. And I don't want to go into more details given really at this stage, there is no certainty that this transaction will go to an end. But you know how important this transaction is not just for Orange and France, but at large for the telecom market.

We've been very vocal on the need for market consolidation. We believe it's critical to sustain investment on our critical infrastructure. And that's why, of course, we will continue to engage with authorities, country authorities as well as regulatory authorities, but not just us, of course, as a consortium. So difficult to provide you more details at this stage, but stay tuned. And of course, as soon as we have progressed, we will give you more colors.

On the French market environment, the Q1 competitive dynamics was less aggressive, especially on the low end. The broadband and the high-end market remains what it was before. Now on one side, you could say Q1 is usually a lower competitive quarter. There's some seasonality effect, even though it's not been like that over the past years, all Q1s. And this is normally the consequence of a very active promotional activity for the Christmas and end-of-year period. But the -- but clearly, lower competitive -- less aggressive. And of course, our performance is also very much driven by the lower churn on all our segments, mobile, broadband, convergence. And this is what we've highlighted in our Trust the future plan. Our focus on churn reduction is, of course, a key enabler of our commercial performance.

In terms of what we could expect from a consolidation, let's be very clear. The transaction between the consortium and SFR, I suspect, especially in the current environment where purchasing power is under pressure because of the Middle East crisis. I don't think that if we were convinced that this transaction would drive price increase in the French market, I'm pretty sure the antitrust authorities would not approve it. So this is something that -- on which we are, on one side, very confident on the need for this transaction to happen and consolidation to happen, but also clearly, we know the market will remain competitive no matter what. And we also know that France has -- is one of the cheapest market in Europe as well.

I may have one quick follow-up. Can you just confirm that part of the deal could now be share-based? Is that what you said? And if so, how could that possibly look like?

Well, this is a technicality, but indeed, the consortium would buy the SFR shares that are part of Altice. In addition, we would also buy other assets. So again, too early to provide you more details. We're not buying the Altice shares, to be clear. But this was just one example of something that changed between October and our latest offer.

So our next question is coming from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs.

Just checking, you can hear me?

Yes, we can hear you well.

Okay. I have 2 organic questions for you. Just one on France and one on Spain. So useful color from you guys on a slightly less aggressive low end of the market in France. And as you've commented in the past, some of the pricing is coming up by EUR 1 to EUR 2. So kind of a part A and part B question to this one. When can we start seeing that come through in your ARPU trends in mobile in France? And is it enough of an improvement for mobile ARPU to turn positive through the year?

The Part B question is Iliad launched some unlimited offers at the end of the quarter. Has that impacted your perception of competitive aggression in France at all? And then just on Spain, you saw an improvement in MASORANGE's growth to 1.2% in the quarter. Are we seeing any signs of an improved outlook for growth there, whether that be MASORANGE's positioning or the market environment?

Thank you, Andrew. On the French market, I mean, we don't guide on the mobile ARPU trend, but clearly, what we see is less aggressive offers for the low end of the mobile market, which probably also drives less market dynamic and part of the explanation for churn reduction. The lowest part of the market is very sensitive to price. And so it's difficult to directly reconcile this dynamic with, of course, the future trend. Part of our ARPU drive is really linked to churn reduction and upsell on our base. So -- and again, we don't guide on the mobile ARPU trend. And as you know, our strategy to grow is also convergence. So migrating mobile-only customers to convergence customers.

On the Free Max offer, which is the high-end offer from -- announced by Iliad, we -- I mean, this is, of course, their strategy. I'm not going to comment on their strategy. That being said, if we think of high capacity or big package for travelers, we have competitive offers in our portfolio, be it Sosh or Orange that are actually cheaper than this Free Max offer. And EUR 30 a month for mobile is not cheap. So we -- I mean, at least, we have our own strategy. We don't think that this at least will change what we drive. But we've seen a good take-up on all our travel offers as well. And as you know, I mean, Q2 is typically an active quarter for that. So expect more commercials as well from us on this side. But of course, Free is sending a signal in the market that they need higher-end offers compared to their, I would say, brand that has been built on this EUR 2 voice mainly offer.

On the Spanish market, the Spanish market remains extremely competitive on the low end. Our performance in Spain is as per plan, and we expect to stabilize. So it's the same recipe as in France, focused on churn reduction, focused on customer value management, and we have been -- we have seen some price increases on the high end of the market. And of course, we play with our different brands, but we definitely forecast an improvement. And actually, Q4, if we compare our Q1 performance in Spain compared to Q4, we have already improved the trends. So this is as per plan.

So the next question is from Akhil Dattani from JPMorgan.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Great. I've got two as well, please, if I can. The first is just on the anticipated merger review process on the SFR deal. I'd love to get your early thoughts more just around jurisdiction. Bouygues has been talking in the last couple of months around their expectation that the deal will likely not be split between both the French authorities and the EC, but will more likely be led by one party. I just wondered if that is your assessment at this stage.

Now we're a bit more advanced in the process. And I guess I'm particularly interested in your thoughts around the press reports last week around the EU's new merger review process draft that was leaked to the Financial Times. It looks like there is a lot more supportive rhetoric around consolidation and a focus away from consumer pricing and more to innovation investments in creating European champion. So would love to just get your understanding of where we are and your engagement with the relevant bodies. So that's the first question.

And then the second question is, I guess, a bit of a simple one around the EBITDAaL guidance. Q1 obviously was very strong at 6.6%. Christel, you mentioned underlying it's still 3.5%. If we were to just very simplistically take the 3.5% for the next 3 quarters, you'd obviously get well above 4%. So could you just talk us through when we look through guidance? I know it's obviously very early in the year. But is this just a bit of conservatism in the context of obviously lots of macro unknowns? Or are there specific phasing items we should think about for the next few quarters?

Thank you, Akhil. On the merger review process, you're right that, as you know, this would be 3 files, one for each member of the consortium. And we know Bouygues would be led from the French authorities and Iliad would be led by Brussels. And regarding Orange, it would depend linked also to the closing and the time line of our Spanish transaction. That being said, you're right, ultimately, in this type of deal, and same was true when we did the MASORANGE transaction. You would expect one of the authority to take the lead, and this is something that the 2 authorities would agree on. That being said, I think that given the scale of the transaction, the impact this would have on the telecom market in Europe, I'd be surprised that even if the French authorities lead the analysis, and again, this is not for us to decide. It's going to be an agreement between the authorities.

I'd be surprised if Brussels does not follow closely and if they don't work together. So of course, it's -- we don't have any signal of any sign. And of course, I can only remind that so far, we don't have an agreement to submit. So it's a bit premature. But of course, we started to discuss with authorities to get them ready because we also know that these antitrust process takes time, and we want to make sure we can help them get up to speed quickly.

In terms of what the new draft or at least the leakage we got in the FT article, we follow closely, of course, and we expect to see the revised guidelines of the draft in the coming weeks. We take it as positive. We can recognize from what has been leaked that some of the ask we had are in the leakage. So it's -- I would say it goes in the right direction. As you know, we've been pretty vocal for the past years. And so this is key. Now let's -- we are -- there is a new Head of DG Competition that was recently appointed but we also know the administration will not completely walk away from consumer prices, especially, as I said, in the current environment where I don't think any political leader could easily talk to their -- I mean to citizens and country population and completely discard price impact or purchasing power. So of course, this is something that if we look at the CMA decision in the U.K. was taken into account with some behavioral remedies and some abilities to drive that.

And of course, this is something that we are also considering. But again, too early to comment further given we're still actively discussing on how to get an agreement agreed. In terms of the guidance, as we said, we are upgrading above 3%, and we are, I mean, very confident and very -- I mean these are good results, very good results for Q1. As we also said, we will update and provide you more details and the impact of the MASORANGE consolidation in -- with our full H1 results. So I mean I won't give you now a more detailed guidance. But indeed, we are very confident with our guidance.

So we have now a question from Nick Lyall from Berenberg.

I hope you can hear me.

Yes, very well.

There was a couple of questions on France, please. Firstly, I think, Laurent, in your comments, you mentioned the top end of the market is stable, but I just wanted to ask on the convergent ARPUs. It looks as if by next quarter, they could be negative and slipping. So is it possible to give us a bit of an update on what's happening there, please?

And then secondly, again, in Orange France, in the revenue line, the other revenue seems to be up by about EUR 30 million as well. Apologies for being a bit of a spotter here, but revenue is up about EUR 30 million. That would account for about 70 basis points of growth. What's in there? Is that a one-off for, say, copper sales or something? Or is there -- is that just a normal underlying number, please?

Thank you. On the convergent ARPU, as I said for the mobile ARPU question, we don't guide on the ARPU trend, but there is also a seasonality effect between Q4 and Q1 related to content or roaming, for instance. So -- but again, we don't guide on convergence, but we are comfortable. And of course, we are successfully executing our plan where the growth is driven by churn reduction and our convergent strategy. On the question on others, Laurent?

Nick, so on the others, indeed, we are EUR 22 million year-on-year. So it's a small item, but this is related notably to the copper resale phasing in France. This is the main element of this variation.

Okay. That's great. And can I just come back on maybe Akhil's question as well. Is there any difference, Christel, you think in terms of timing between French and EC authorities? Just -- it's probably a very, very difficult one to answer, of course. But is there any sense that the French authorities may be faster if it was a French process? Could you help us on that?

Well, I'd love to tell you that it's going to be fast, but my own experience with our different files has been pretty disappointing. And you know, I mean, based on our Spanish experience, if you want to move fast in this type of transaction, of course, you have to be very proactive in terms of remedies. And if I look at our Spanish approval, so you could say, okay, it was in a previous world with a different commission, old guidelines, but still, it took time also because we didn't want to say yes to everything that was required. So -- so there's a thin line between trying to move fast and making sure we build a proper and sustainable environment for the future. So -- but clearly, in order for us to move fast, we are anticipating, preparing, I mean, notification, a lot of work that has to take place. But again, I don't want to -- the French authorities.

We know that the authorities will do their best also to move fast. They know they have pressure and political pressure and economic pressure. But there's a lot of work to be done, and we have to respect that.

So next question is from Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank.

Can you hear me now?

Very well.

I've got 2, please. First one, sorry, going back to France and maybe a bit more focused on the fixed ARPU, which, I guess, reversing some of the declines, which we've seen in the previous quarters. Something which you guys have talked about before, which was the perhaps targeted price increases as well as the ongoing upselling. Is it possible to kind of give us a bit more detail around if there was an element of that this quarter in these targeted price increases, and perhaps what percentage of the base that was allocated to? And can we expect some of that going forward?

And secondly, Africa Middle East, which I guess we don't get the EBITDAaL split this quarter, but based on the top line, seems to be going very well. I got a sense from the CMD that there is an element of upside through the year maybe. But can you remind us on the energy situation regarding, I think, is it subsidies versus the solar split and how you are not officially hedged on energy, but how you are able to scale that dynamic given the energy situation?

Thank you, Roshan. On the fixed market, maybe, I mean, I will let Jerome comment on the impact of our price increases and whether we plan more and Laurent will answer on our energy hedging policy.

Yes. Thank you, Christel. Well, as mentioned, we are stable year-on-year and quarter-over-quarter on our fixed broadband ARPU. This reflects the success of our upsell and cross-sell strategy first. It's as well fueled by our multiservice activities or new growth engine such as subscription VOD or other packages, helping us to push for high-end mix in our sales which means fixed broadband above EUR 40, which represent now a large share of our sales, thanks to the enrichment of the packages. As far as price increases are concerned, we do a very limited and targeted one. I don't think we do comment on volumes on that.

So Roshan, moving to the energy and the MEA situation. Just overall, if I look at Europe, we are 100% hedged on the energy for Europe in '26, more than 90% in 2027, and we are well advanced as well in '28. So very much extremely well covered. On Middle East and Africa, we are covered as well naturally because we have a lot of our sites, which are solar powered. And we continue to expand on this in terms of investments. And of course, we'll have some headwinds related to the fuel price, and there is a lot of mechanism indeed, in terms of subsidies, mitigation. So overall, we are not at all concerned that would put at risk our overall guidance and the positive momentum we have in Middle East and Africa when it comes to the EBITDA.

So we are going now to take a question from Carl Murdock-Smith from Citi.

Given the other issues I thought I'd just double check. Can you hear me?

Yes, very well, Carl.

That's fantastic. Two questions from me, please, both slightly on kind of prudence in guidance. So firstly, on Africa and the Middle East, following up kind of on Roshan's question. The evidence in Q1 is that it's still growing very well. Laurent, I think you said that you're very comfortable on the EBITDAaL guidance.

Is it fair to say that your high single-digit guidance for this year on EBITDA versus 14% last year could be seen as conservative? And are you simply staying prudent given, as you just talked about, the kind of potential impacts from energy prices and geopolitical events?

And then secondly, I was reading the universal registration document. And I wanted to ask about the disparity between annual bonus targets and the LTIP. So in your 2025 annual bonus, your organic cash flow beat targets with 23.5% payout versus its 20% weighting. And that follows on from beats in 2023 and 2024 as well. So you've beaten your target in the scorecard in each of the last 3 years. But if I look at the 3-year LTIP over the same time period of 2023 to 2025, you came in below target at just below EUR 10.7 billion versus a target of just above EUR 10.8 billion. So you only got a 94.5% payout on that metric. So I guess I'm asking just what's going on there.

Is Orange more prudent when issuing its 1 year targets and guidance and then more stretching in its medium-term budgets? I'm just trying to reconcile that overachievement on 1-year performance versus underperformance on the 3-year. And I suppose I'm asking with one eye on your 2026 guidance, which might be viewed as prudent, but also another eye on the 2028 organic cash flow target of EUR 5.2 billion, and your likely overachievement or underachievement relative to that target?

Thank you, Carl. So I mean, as we -- I mean, first, I mean, the guidance is a combination of -- I mean, it's our best estimate from what we see on our group portfolio of activities, and we are rightfully confirming and as you said, I mean, MEA is really outperforming, and it's been like that for actually several quarters. Now we do not underestimate as well the difficulty for the teams to achieve those results in a very complex environment and sometimes volatile environment. But -- and we will reconsolidate MASORANGE in Q2, which has also impact on our overall numbers. So we will provide you more details, especially on the cash flow accretion that this would bring knowing that for the rest of the guidance, the MASORANGE, we reconfirm the guidance.

When it comes to how we drive the performance of our teams with annual bonus and LTIP. So the LTIP, of course, is on 3 years. Just so that you know in terms of why the '25 performance and this has been an intense discussion with my Board of Directors. The guidance had been set in the context where initially MASORANGE was not included, and it was revised to include MASORANGE. And so somehow the LTIP was more demanding, I would say, in terms of target than the annual bonus. But this is -- there is no specific intent to be more strict or ambitious in LTIP than in annual bonus.

We take the same balance where we were -- we want objectives that are reachable, but we also want to make sure we reward over performance. And all our executives in the company, our top 300, they both have an objective on their division, the business they drive as well as a group objective and the LTIP is a global reward system. So that now we are increasing the volume of LTIP to our top management, and I know this is a comment we had over the years from you to make sure that we aligned objectives from -- on the performance and the shares and investors and top executives.

So this goes in the right direction. But I also recognize that our Board of Directors is trying to push us and challenge us by setting ambitious objective. But again, it's always an exercise where it's all about making the objectives ambitious but also reachable. So it's a lot of internal discussion, as you would expect. But there is no specific intent in terms of why '25 was different between the annual bonus and the LTIP.

So next question is from Russell Waller from New Street.

Hope you can hear me.

It's okay. A bit far away, but it's okay.

Okay. Yes, I had a question on the consortium offer. You said that there was a possibility that you were thinking about bidding for the shares rather than the asset. And I just wanted to ask about that, please. What are the implications of that? Does that mean that you then take on some tax liabilities or working capital adjustment? Or are there any other liabilities or assets? And why is it important or relevant? Is this something that the seller has asked for? And why is it important to hear?

Thank you. On the -- I mean, this was just one example of something that changed between our revised offer and the first offer in October. But I won't provide you more details, but just the objective of the share transaction for SFR is to be faster in terms of transition and executability of the transaction because if you think of a pure asset deal, that would mean acquiring customers, acquiring IT, acquiring very different type of assets with a risk of execution that was too high. Now I won't comment on tax and liabilities because as you can expect, this is something that in any transaction is reviewed in detail. And I don't think there's any difference whether it's an asset or share deal, I mean, in any case, liabilities and taxes are included. And this is something that we've reviewed. And of course, we would comment in more details if and when we have an agreement.

So next question, this is from St phane Beyazian, ODDO.

I was wondering with MASORANGE potentially France, obviously, the timing of the 2 transactions are obviously not the same, not the same year. But I was wondering whether you're considering some noncore asset sales, tiny bits that perhaps you could be selling in order to bringing a little bit of cash. And my second question is regarding the copper network shutdown, whether you've made progress there? What color can you give us about this?

Thank you. I mean, as you know, we always review our portfolio of assets, and we have been -- we have been exiting or selling several assets, of course, Orange Bank a few years back, our content activities as well. More recently, we announced the sale of Globecast, and we are now in the process of consulting employee representatives. And this is something -- a transaction that would -- that we plan to close later -- I mean, in the next month, later in the year. So there is, of course, a number of assets that we always consider to make sure that they get the proper shareholding structure for their own strategy. But this type of portfolio review is not linked to our balance sheet need. I would say that for the MASORANGE and the considered Altice transaction. As you know, this is something which we took care of, and we have the ability to fund through our cash flow trajectory. But of course, that doesn't preclude us from reviewing on a regular basis, our portfolio of assets. On the copper, Jerome? Copper.

Yes. Thank you, Christel. Well on our copper network removal and technical shutdown, we successfully passed the Phase 2 last Jan, which was a scaling one as we had a technical shutdown for close to 1 million households. It went very smooth and well indeed. And I think it was underlined by the Arcep regulation authority as such. We as well, commercially speaking, closed 21.5 million households for copper offer sales. So we are rolling out this industrial project as per plan with no issues so far.

And have you already contracted with -- I think you were planning to launch a tender. Have you done all of that already?

Yes. It's still in process because the next phases will be, of course, more and more important in terms of scale of removal, and we need to control the end-to-end process, including treatment and resale. RFPs are still going on.

We now have a question from Eric Ravary, CIC. So Eric, we cannot hear you because we see on our device, on our screen that your mic is muted. Okay. Well, in any case, as you know, the team is fully at your disposal after the call to follow up with your question. So Eric was the last question in the list. So we could possibly take a very last one if someone is willing to do so. If not, I will leave the floor to Christel for concluding remarks. So Christel, please.

Thank you. Q1 marks an excellent start to our Trust the future plan, and we are very pleased with our very strong results. Based on these achievements and our outlook for the upcoming months, we are slightly raising our group EBITDAaL guidance from circa 3% to above 3%, and we will again provide you with an update on our guidance with H1 results following the closing of the MASORANGE operation. Thank you, and I wish you a pleasant day.

Good morning. Thank you for being here, and thank you for those of you who are connected. I'm really pleased to be here with the entire leadership team of Orange. The strategic plan is both a demanding exercise and a decisive moment. It aligns our ambition, focuses our resources and, above all, sets a clear direction with confidence. It's also an exciting milestone that mobilized the energy of our talented teams.

Few years ago, we launched Lead the future. In a challenging environment for our industry and for the world, we will review our progress. We streamlined and refocus the group, improved efficiency and agility and delivered on the commitments we set. In short, we are today much stronger than 3 years ago across all dimensions. Our new plan is then cored on three core convictions. Connectivity is more essential than ever as our industry responds to ever-growing data demand, technology shifts, rising cyber threats and high expectations for trust, security and resilience. Trust is the currency of the future. In an uncertain world, it underpins customer loyalty, employee engagement and partner collaboration.

Orange brings distinctive assets, an iconic brand, a broad and loyal customer base, world-class infrastructure and a solid balance sheet and talented teams. This is the overall context in which we are presenting this morning, Trust the future. our new strategic plan.

Let me say a few words about the leadership team, the team that executed our Lead the future plan. This team is highly engaged, recognized for its expertise and its track record and brings diverse experience in the telecom industry as well as other sectors both in France and abroad. You will hear from many of them throughout today's presentation and Q&A.

Our main speakers will be Laurent Martinez, our CFO, whom all of you already know; Aliette Mousnier-Lompre, CEO of Orange Business; Jerome Henique, who successfully led Orange Africa/Middle East until last June and to cover Orange France; Yasser Shaker, who was successfully leading Orange Egypt and succeeded Jerome to lead Orange Middle East and Africa; and Meinrad Spenger, Meini, the founder of MASMOVIL, who is now the CEO of MasOrange. Together, we will give you a perspective on our strategy at group level before focusing on its implementation across our various businesses. And of course, Laurent will update you on our financial trajectory and capital allocation before we turn to our 2026 and 2028 guidances. We plan to allocate more than 1 hour for the Q&A session.

I will not be reading the standard disclaimer typically associated with this type of presentation. You can refer to it in the presentation available on our website. Just one important clarification regarding our presentation. All our 2028 ambitions assume full reconsolidation of MasOrange unless otherwise specified. And as you know, we are expecting a closing of the transaction in H1 2026.

Let me start with an overview on our strategy. Where do we stand today? Orange has strong assets, and we serve a growing base of over 340 million customers in 26 countries in Europe, Africa, Middle East as well as our B2B customers worldwide. With our committed teams, we can leverage the power of our strong brand and our undisputed leadership in connectivity. With close to 100 million fiber-connectable homes, 5G available in 100% of our countries in Europe and 4G covering more than 80% of the population in Africa, Middle East, these are strong assets and our global scale enabled us to deliver more than EUR 40 billion in revenues and EUR 2.8 billion in free cash flow all-in, in 2025, as presented yesterday. And we foresee a significant step-up moving forward.

Leveraging our strengths has been our guiding principle behind the execution of our Lead the future plan. Over the past 3 years, we have actively and successfully transformed Orange to make it stronger, simpler and better, and we have delivered on all our financial and extra financial commitments. We are stronger. Over the period, we have reinforced our leadership positions across all our geographies. We successfully created MasOrange, the leading operator in Spain. We expect to close our full acquisition of this operation in H1, which will make Spain our second largest market in Europe.

We are committed to national consolidation. As you know, I continue to advocate Europe to review its regulatory framework as we believe a strong digital and telco ecosystem is essential to enhance competitiveness in Europe. In this context, we submitted a joint offer to acquire a significant part of Altice activities in France. Over the past 3 years, we achieved double-digit growth in Africa, Middle East, and Orange Cyberdefense continued to gain market share. Our strategy helped us reaffirm our leadership in Net Promoter Score, a key indicator of customer satisfaction. We also reinforced our infrastructure leadership. We completed FTTH deployment, especially in France.

We are simpler. This strategic journey has allowed us to streamline our operations and refocus on our core businesses with the exit from OCS and Orange Bank. We have also embarked on a comprehensive transformation of Orange Business. We simplified our group processes to become a more agile and efficient organization, enabling local empowerment and global scale. We are better. In 3 years, we've overdelivered on our commitments, and our financial performance reflects this transformation. Free cash flow all-in is up EUR 1.2 billion over the last 3 years, and total shareholder return grew 82% between end 2022 and 2025. In the meantime, we have kept a very solid balance sheet with a net debt-to-EBITDAaL ratio at 1.8x.

Moreover, we are growing sustainably. We overachieved our 2025 CO2 commitments on Scopes 1, 2 and 3. To conclude, we are laser-focused on execution. And I am convinced that these actions have positioned us even better to accelerate, seize new opportunities and continue delivering value for all our stakeholders.

In a rapidly evolving environment, where connectivity remains critical, we see macro trends as valuable opportunities for Orange to innovate and grow. The changing geopolitical landscape emphasizes the importance of strong local telcos and makes Orange's multi-local model more relevant than ever. This context also reinforces the need for in-market consolidation, as I said previously, resilient infrastructure and trusted secure solution. Technological advancements, especially in artificial intelligence, but also eSIM and satellite, are transforming industries and unlocking new innovative possibilities while creating new customer needs. And you will see that we are seizing these opportunities.

Simultaneously, the rise in digital threats highlights the critical need for safer digital experience and enhanced cybersecurity, presenting both challenges and growth opportunities for us. Finally, the impact of climate change is reinforcing our commitment to environmental objectives and makes the resilience of our services and networks even more essential. By understanding and leveraging these accelerating trends, we are well positioned to innovate, adapt and create long-term value through our new plan, trust at the core, and three key ambitions: customer intimacy, innovative growth and excellence at scale.

Trust is at the core of our new strategic plan, Trust the future. Let's stop for a minute on trust, and it's a key driver of our new plan. As digital complexity and pervasive risks rise with rapid innovation, growing cyber risk, fake news, customers and businesses want two things: seamless experience and trust. The winners should deliver both. Orange starts from a position of strength. Of course, our long-term purpose is clear. As a trusted partner, Orange gives everyone the keys to a responsible digital world. We believe trust is a unique competitive advantage. It means putting trust as a key driver for innovation, marketing and sales offer.

To achieve this goal, we have three strategic ambitions: customer intimacy, innovative growth and excellence at scale. The foundation of all our actions will be our unwavering commitment to people, society and the environment. This commitment guides our decisions, shape our culture and ensure that every step we take contributes to building a sustainable and inclusive digital world.

Our people are the engine of Trust the future, driving innovation, growth, trust and sustainable performance. Over the past 3 years, we have renewed our leadership team. 60% of our top 300 managers have changed roles or are newly appointed, and we have attracted talents from the retail, digital and tech industry. Leadership mobility and our ability to attract top talent are important markers of a dynamic and growth-focused organization. To do so, we are investing more time in succession planning and talent development because we know our people are the greatest asset to shape a resilient and sustainable future.

We have also outlined our three values to redefine our culture, responsible, caring and bold, embedded in managerial practices. Our leadership model now centers on strong team alignment and employment. As part of this new culture, we expect open, fact-based discussions that surface issues early and accelerate execution. As I like to say, we are definitely moving from a culture of pleasing the boss to no sugar coating style, real issue discussions.

Engagement is strong. In our January internal survey, 81% of our 123,000 employees said they are proud to work for Orange, and 76% are ready to go beyond expectations. Our employee commitment score is up 3 points. We have great experience and recognized talents in cybersecurity, data, AI and sales and networks. With upskilling and reskilling, we continue investing in our teams and expanding our skill base. To date, 65,000 colleagues have completed AI training and we have 3,200 cyber experts. And as you know, in France, an agreement was unanimously signed with employee representatives to manage workforce evolution in the next 3 years.

Our commitment also extends to our customers, society and the planet. These broader responsibility is at the heart of our purpose. It is built on three pillars: digital trust, economic empowerment and environment. Digital trust is built on providing a safer digital experience. Our objective is to provide digital users protection offers in all our countries by 2030. Regarding society and employment, we have a strong role to play to reduce gaps and reinforce digital inclusion. We aim to expand coverage in Africa, Middle East and offer free trainings on digital to more than 6 million people by 2030.

Finally, for environment, we are committed to strengthening resilience by adapting our infrastructure and activities to more extreme weather events by partnering with our suppliers and developing circular economy solutions. By 2030, we target to reduce CO2 emissions on all scopes by minus 45%, and our commitment towards net zero carbon by 2040 remain unchanged.

Now let's take a closer look at how our three ambitions are coming to life to action. These three strategic ambitions represent the key areas where we will focus our efforts to strengthen our position and accelerate growth.

Our first ambition, customer intimacy. In mature European markets and high-potential Africa/Middle East, customer expectations are shifting to hyper-personalization. Our ambition is to build a lasting 1:1 relationship with every customer. This is what we call customer intimacy. We will target all pockets of growth across our geographies while strengthening loyalty and reducing churn to protect and enhance value.

To differentiate, we will push through a convergent approach but also go beyond with multiservice offerings that bring together trusted connectivity, entertainment and essential services, simplifying life at home and on the move. Our execution priorities to deliver this offer the best connectivity experience, frictionless journeys and reinvent engagement through high-quality digital experiences that drive frequent meaningful interactions.

Let's go into more details. To expand our customer base, we will continue to capitalize on the remarkable growth potential of Africa/Middle East, driven by favorable demographic trends and growth of data usage with smartphone and fixed broadband penetration. In Europe, we will continue to grow convergence and FTTH adoption in our customer base. Additionally, we will target underpenetrated segments, for example, diasporas or youth. We will also pursue the momentum on B2B in Europe and Africa, Middle East and expand the customer base. Overall, our ambition is to grow our fixed and mobile customer base by around 40 million by 2028. By then, we should have more than 380 million customers. All those ambitions are also closely tied to our loyalty and engagement strategy.

In mature markets, enhancing loyalty and minimizing churn is a key value driver. For example, in France, a 1 point reduction in churn can lead to EUR 40 million in EBITDAaL improvement. Convergence has proven to be a powerful tool for enhancing loyalty, resulting in France in a churn rate that is 5 points lower than that of fixed broadband. Our ambition is to keep best-in-class churn and improve churn rates by up to 3 points in our European countries.

To foster loyalty, our strategy is to protect our customer base to strengthen NPS, increasing multi-services beyond convergence, for example, content, device insurance and financing, which are key drivers of loyalty. We will also launch loyalty programs. In Europe, we will launch new AI assistants to support our sales teams in recommending the most suitable products, reducing waiting times and always aiming for first-time resolution. Our objective is to go towards 100% of customer interactions to be augmented by AI in customer service, as you will hear from Jerome Henique later.

In France, we target NPS at 40 by 2028, representing a 6-point increase versus 2025 and maintaining the existing gap with our competitors. In Europe and Africa/Middle East countries, we consolidate our leadership on mobile NPS in 2/3 of our geographies. We will reinforce the use of customer value management boosted by AI.

What is customer value management? In simple terms, it is the promise of the right offer at the right time through the right channel for every individual customer. Using customer value management across all channels, we can identify potential churners and promptly offer retention incentives or hyper-personalized services in order to enhance loyalty. Reinforcing the use of CVM will also contribute to the last lever of our customer intimacy ambition, putting value through increased differentiation.

First, we will harness the power of digital to extend the number of touch points with our customers through the development of Max it super app in Africa/Middle East and next-gen applications in Europe. We expect to spread adoption across all our customer base. Additionally, to leverage digital, we plan to develop marketplaces, enriching our range of telecom and electronic products. In Spain, our marketplace is already available.

Leveraging on the power of digital and data, we will reach our full upsell and cross-sell potential and capture more value. In Africa/Middle East, we expect to increase 4G and 5G penetration by 8 points, reaching 130 million 4G/5G customers and Max it users by 50 million. In Europe, leveraging on the power of digital and data, value will come from multi-service offerings such as content, roaming options or device insurance. Finally, as a trusted operator, we will accelerate the development of digital protection solutions, cybersecurity offers for parents of young people. We will provide always available connectivity through fixed wireless or with satellite complementing mobile and broadband networks.

Our second ambition, innovative growth, involves expanding our growth model to capture opportunities in both B2C and B2B segments, leveraging the power of our brand, our customer base, our extensive data and best-in-class connectivity. Looking at B2C. As already discussed, we aim to increase the share of multi-services in our revenues. In addition to traditional services that create stickiness and loyalty, we have an existing portfolio of other high-growth profitable services that have the potential to grow double digit by 2028.

We plan to accelerate these innovative adjacencies through a dedicated focus with the right organization, the right people and the right agile decision process. These initiatives include for Africa/Middle East Orange Money and Max it, and in Europe, offers such as cybersecurity for consumers, home security, Orange travel MVNO for roamers and international money transfer between Europe and Africa Middle East. We will also grow new businesses such as telco APIs and ad tech platforms in France and in Spain. As a result, these growth initiatives will contribute more than EUR 500 million of additional revenues by 2028, starting from a level of more than EUR 1 billion in 2025.

Moving to B2B. We are the #1 telco player for B2B global secure connectivity and cybersecurity services in Europe. We plan to leverage our unique assets with advanced trusted solutions, as Aliette will comment later. Our ambition is to generate an additional EUR 500 million in revenue, reaching EUR 2.6 billion in trusted B2B revenues by 2028, driven by mid- to high single-digit growth in cyberdefense, trusted cloud, AI and the defense and health verticals in France. In addition, we will also build on the strong commercial momentum of IT and integration revenues on our domestic B2B footprint, targeting more than 7% revenue growth on average over the next 3 years. This includes services such as cloud, cybersecurity and AI-powered solutions.

Innovative growth will also be driven by the continued management for value of our infrastructure assets. It is worth noting that our portfolio's diversity and scale is quite unique. We are the clear #1 in Europe in terms of fiber deployment. We also hold leading positions in towers, poles, ground stations and long-distance infrastructures. Ownership of these assets underpins our strong premium positioning, enables the optimization of Orange's risk profile and offers long-term cash flow generation from anchor tenants such as other telcos, but also hyperscalers and satellite constellations.

We will continue to develop the wholesale monetization of these assets. In France, our FTTH monetization ratio stands at 74%, and we expect to increase it by 5 points by 2028. This ratio is also expected to increase in Europe and Africa/Middle East, respectively, by 4 and 6 points by 2028. We will develop dark fiber businesses with at least mid-teens internal return rates. Finally, we expect to grow TOTEM external hosting revenues by 7% on average between '25 and '28.

To illustrate all those benefits, let's view a short video.

[Presentation]

Let's now move to our third ambition, excellence at scale, which reflects our commitment to operational efficiency while leveraging the scale of our group and artificial intelligence. Our networks are and will remain the bedrock of our business. We have deployed fiber, 4G and 5G. We will decommission 2G and 3G as well as copper in Europe. This will simplify our operating model and generate efficiency and savings. We remain committed to enhancing network resilience.

The overall capital intensity of the group will decrease. CapEx will remain disciplined with allocation decisions increasingly based on value and customer needs. In Europe, CapEx will decrease with the end of the fiber rollout in the continent, while we will continue to invest for growth in Africa/Middle East. We will also enhance our network operating models. By 2030, the majority of our network control and management functions, along with our connectivity services, will be cloud-based. Additionally, we will integrate satellite and advanced 5G capabilities to deliver augmented resilience against factors such as security and climate hazards. Overall, our CapEx-to-sales ratio will gradually decrease to around 14% by 2028 and even below 14% excluding Africa/Middle East.

Excellence at scale also means the ability to drive technology leadership, leverage and enrich skill centers as well as work with the best ecosystem of partners. To streamline deployment of offers, boost product innovation and scale internal needs, we prioritize key group platforms like Orange Money, cyber secure next-generation apps, home gateway and a unified cloud platform. By pulling expertise, we allow every country in the group to benefit from the very best skills and practices provided by our common data and AI hub, our satellite skill center and others.

Thanks to our scale, we can build balanced relationships with the best tech companies. We gain early access to innovations facilitated by our open innovation and open source approach. Our strong presence in the tech ecosystem, including through our Orange Ventures portfolio, also allows us to stay constantly at the forefront of the latest technological advancements, including from startups.

Our goal is to further expand AI deployment in every part of our daily operations. Our approach is based on our data and AI factory with 1,500 experts, European and Africa/Middle East data residency and diverse strategic partnerships. As of today, we have 65,000 employees trained on AI and 100,000 internal users of live intelligence, our internal Gen AI platform. In practical terms, we have four main AI domains where use cases are prioritized through value assessment. In customer experience, AI helps us better personalize interactions and enhance customer engagement through customer value management.

In network management, use cases such as preventive maintenance and field operations optimization will contribute to our targeted reduction in mean time to repair. For instance, time to detect and fix could be reduced from hours to minutes when there's no need to send a field technician. AI is also employed to streamline various internal processes, improving efficiency. All jobs across the organization will benefit from AI, from presales job to procurement, legal or fraud detection. The full potential of AI will require change management and end-to-end transformation. Finally, AI opens avenues for B2B new revenue streams. All the AI initiatives are projected to generate EUR 600 million in value by 2028 to be compared with the more than EUR 300 million in 2025.

Finally, regarding operational efficiency, we will continue to build on the transformation programs launched in the past years and accelerate efforts on newly identified opportunities. First, on procurement. Our transformation program combined with the bargaining power of our JV buy-in with Deutsche Telekom will allow us to deliver over EUR 1 billion savings by 2028. Second, we will leverage scale to improve efficiency. We are streamlining our processes and automating whatever possible, especially in France in the context of the renewed senior part time plan. Network transformation, real estate optimization and the deployment of digital solutions will contribute to cost optimization, increased agility and service quality. Laurent will develop how these initiatives translate into our financial trajectory.

Before moving to our business overview, starting with Jerome, CEO of France, a short video to illustrate the benefits of AI for the group.

[Presentation]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Christel. In France, we are, as you know, the undisputed leader in market share, and we are determined to strengthen our position in what we expect to remain a very competitive market. So this will be achieved, thanks to an unleashed innovation that will allow us to remain best-in-class in NPS, Net Promoter Score, and churn and to accelerate our push to value strategy with upsell, cross-sell and strong growth of multiservice revenues, leveraging our large customer base. We have set some clear objectives in this regard. We are targeting NPS of 40 for the residential market by 2028, up 6 points from our already best-in-class level in the market. We also expect to reduce our churn in both mobile and broadband, even so we have the lowest churn in the French market.

So what is our road map? As Christel mentioned, delivering the best personalized digital experience for our customers remains a top priority, and we will continue to bring innovation to the market, starting with our next-gen Orange app embedding AI and providing seamless and personalized services that will be available soon. As you saw in the video, we will as well deploy an AI assistant for such customers, incorporating the most advanced generative AI technologies, enabling us to offer a unique experience to our customers. We will continue to drive value through upselling and cross-selling, doubling down on adjacent services to connectivity for both B2C and B2B customers with proven commercial success such as cybersecurity, advertising and payment services, our home security services, insurance and subscription VOD/SVOD for video and demand. Our goal is to increase revenue from fee services by over 5% per year on average between 2025 and 2028.

To better cross-sell and respond to evolving customer needs, we will rely on innovation. To this regard, we plan to launch a marketplace in 2026, enriching our range of telecom and electronic products at competitive prices. We will also continue to drive the organization towards next level of operational efficiency, and we are aiming for sustained EBITDAaL margin improvement and increased operating cash flow over the duration of the plan, supported by continuous OpEx reduction and a strict execution of our efficiency plan. This will come as a result of numerous initiatives such as the smart use of AI in operations, greater mutualization and procurement. Moreover, we will continue to sharply reduce our CapEx, targeting a decrease of over EUR 300 million over the next 3 years.

With over 42 million fiber-connectable households at the end of 2025, we already cover 94% of France and we have 80% of our broadband customers on fiber, demonstrating the huge success of our fiber strategy while addressing our regulatory obligations. In the coming years, we will focus on the execution of the ongoing copper to fiber migration with a total of 44 million copper premises to decommission by 2030. This represents a significant operational transition, and we are ready for it. Over the last years, we have tested this process, already decommissioned technically more than 1 million premises, negotiated contracts for copper extraction and established the engagement model with local communities and all stakeholders.

Let's take a step back and look how it affects our EBITDAaL between 2025 and 2028. Retail, excluding PSTN contribution, is expected to be broadly stable in a challenging market. The transition from copper to fiber will continue to impact EBITDAaL in France due to the decline of around EUR 800 million in copper-related revenues over 3 years, both wholesale and retail. We aim to fully absorb these impacts through a combination of operational efficiencies, which represent over EUR 600 million, as well as the resell of copper for incremental circa EUR 200 million. These initiatives are expected to more than offset the decline of copper revenues, leading to a stable-plus EBITDAaL CAGR in France between 2025 and 2028. Finally, in terms of cash, we expect the copper resell to slightly more than offset the dismantling costs provisioned at the end of 2025.

So overall, in a competitive market, our strong leadership and strategy will enable us to deliver stable retail services excluding PSTN revenue over the next 3 years. Amid ongoing copper to fiber migration, we expect a stable-plus evolution of EBITDAaL with continued improvement in EBITDAaL margin. With the near completion of fiber rollout in France, we expect a significant reduction in our CapEx in the next 3 years, exceeding EUR 300 million and decreasing the CapEx-to-sales ratio by 2 points. We also see opportunities beyond 2028 to further reduce the CapEx intensity. Overall, this will fuel strong growth in operating cash flow at more than plus 3% CAGR between 2025 and 2028. And last but not least, for 2026, we aim for a stable-plus EBITDAaL evolution, which is very consistent with our 3-year trajectory.

I will now leave the floor to Yasser Shaker, CEO of Orange Middle East and Africa. But before that, a quick video introducing the dynamism of this region.

[Presentation]

So good morning. [Foreign Language], Jerome. And I hope you're ready to go with us on a trip to Africa and Middle East, where I'm proud to share our solid performance, track record and strong growth journey across Africa and Middle East.

2025, in fact, was an outstanding year, where we reached new heights with revenue up 12.2% and EBITDAaL up 13.9% year-over-year. Last year alone, we welcomed 14 million new customers to our base, the equivalent of a nation's population. We also strengthened our leadership position as the #1 operator in 10 countries across our well-balanced, diversified footprint with no single country representing more than 15% of our OMEA revenue.

I believe the best is still yet to come. Our region has the youngest and fastest-growing population globally. And by 2030, 4G and 5G penetration is expected to increase by around 20 points additionally. Smartphone adoption will also increase by around 30 points. These powerful market dynamics will continue to fuel strong growth in our core business and directly supports our ambition to add more than 40 million mobile data users over the next 3 years, which means, in fact, over 1 million a month. On top of that, we're targeting to double our fiber customer base by end of 2028.

But beyond connectivity, our new growth journey will also focus on accelerating our nontelco growth engine. First, Orange Money, which generated close to EUR 200 billion in transaction value last year, will scale and simplify real-time lendings, payments and international money transfers. This is particularly powerful in a region where around 45% of the population remains unbanked. We aim, therefore, over the next 3 years to add more than 20 million customers to our Orange Money customer base.

When it comes to Max it, our super app, we'll enrich its services across gaming, TV, e-commerce and advertisement with an ambition to triple its base by adding more than 50 million users over the next few years, reaching 75 million users in total. In parallel, we'll sustain a double-digit CAGR growth in B2B and achieve a twofold growth in our ICT revenue. Our target in fact, is to exceed EUR 10 billion in revenue by 2028 while further strengthening our operating model and improving efficiency across the region by scaling best-in-class practices. With AI, we aim to operate more efficiently using real-time data to drive faster decisions, especially in our prepaid market, where speed of execution and customer relevance are very critical.

But let us see how this reflects into our financials. First, we anticipate an average high single-digit top line growth over the next 3 years with Africa and Middle East remaining the group's top contributor to overall growth. We're committed to that. This will be reflected positively on EBITDAaL, which will be outpacing the revenue growth. And given the regions' rapid payback time, we'll continue disciplined investments in our networks, particularly in terms of coverage and capacity, while maintaining the level of investment at a stable CapEx-to-sales ratio over the next 3 years. The combination of strong EBITDAaL growth and stable CapEx-to-sales ratio will enable us to deliver a high single-digit growth in operating cash flow over the period. In 2026, our outlook remains fully aligned with our ambition to deliver high single-digit EBITDAaL year-over-year growth.

Finally, Trust the future remain fully committed to supporting the region's digital and societal development. Thank you. And I'll now give the floor back to Christel.

Thank you, Yasser, and thank you, Jerome, as well. Let's now shift to Europe. Over the past years, we drove in-market consolidation in Belgium and Romania to strengthen our convergence strategy. Financially, we delivered a 2-point improvement in operating cash flow margin over the last 3 years, paving the way to sustainable value. Looking ahead, we will continue to operate in mature markets, where B2C market growth is expected to be between 0% and 4% across countries. By strategically balancing volume and value and by leveraging our portfolio of strong brands, we aim to achieve low single-digit revenue growth. Our convergent and FTTH customer base is expected to grow at double-digit rates between 2025 and 2028.

Customer loyalty will be a key driver of our success. We will develop personalized offers powered by AI-driven customer value management while enhancing the overall customer experience. We'll enrich our MyOrange mobile app and leverage AI across all touch points to make interactions more relevant and engaging. In addition, we will boost adjacent services like in France and Spain, such as cybersecurity or a new marketplace in Poland. On the B2B side, we anticipate continued growth driven by cybersecurity, cloud and data services with a CAGR exceeding 5% between 2025 and 2028.

Our commitment to excellence at scale will lead to a 2-point EBITDAaL margin improvement between 2025 and 2028. This will be achieved by bold efficiency initiatives, platforming and pulling of programs across our European countries. On the network side, we will expand RAN sharing and optimize our FTTH coverage through partnerships, wholesale agreement or FiberCos.

Moving from strategy to financial trajectory, we aim to deliver high single-digit operating cash flow growth over the next 3 years, similar to levels expected in Africa/Middle East. Our European operations are expected to grow retail services low single digits and deliver low to mid-single-digit EBITDAaL growth. Meanwhile, eCAPEX/sales is projected to decline to 14%, thanks to strict CapEx discipline and optimized infrastructure. For 2026, our EBITDAaL outlook is consistent with our 3-year trajectory with low to mid-single EBITDAaL growth. And of course, I'm presenting, but I know Marie-Noelle is committed with our 6 country CEOs to deliver on those objectives.

Let's now take a closer look at our cybersecurity activities, one of our strategic focus areas fueling innovative growth. With more than 3,000 experts and a revenue of [ EUR 150 million ] last year, Orange Cyberdefense reached its Lead the future target and is the leading cybersecurity company among European telco companies. Market projections indicate the continued increase in cyber threats driven by technological advancements in AI and amplified by geopolitical tensions. These trends will translate into high single-digit growth in the European cyberdefense market in the next 3 years. Our ambition is to fully capture that expansion, reaching EUR 2 billion in revenues by 2030.

To achieve this goal, we will refine our cyber portfolio offers on growing solutions such as [ micro SoC ], and we will launch SME offers across our telco footprint. We will also capitalize on the synergies with telco expertise within the group to build comprehensive solutions across the value chain. The combination of our cyber and telco expertise is key to continue developing our cyber threat intelligence and complements Orange's business and our B2C activities. Finally, we will continue to actively deploy AI solutions and to improve our operational performance necessary to support profitable business growth.

I will now hand the floor over to Aliette, who will present our Orange Business strategy. Keep in mind that Orange Cyberdefense is included in Orange Business segment figures.

Thank you, Christel. Three years ago, Orange Business embarked on a deeply transformative journey. We halved our product portfolio, we redesigned our operating model around streamlined central functions and accountable geographies for their P&L, and we triggered a very ambitious efficiency program. The results are tangible. Our EBITDAaL decline dropped from minus 21% in 2022 to minus 6% in 2025 and our NPS improved by 12 points. With those new foundations in place, our objective is to continue our path towards EBITDAaL stabilization and resume profitable growth.

This will require continuous effort to optimize our cost base and our workforce, and it will also require to optimize our legacy business, voice, private networks, copper-based offers, because they will continue to decrease in the next years, in line with what we faced for the last 5 years. However, we have strengths and major opportunities to be seized to offset such a decline of our legacy segment. Our mix in terms of trusted brands, go-to-market infrastructures and expertise is truly distinctive. It puts us into a unique position to become the leader of trusted digital services.

To do so, we want first to reinforce our position as a global leader in secure connectivity. It includes more sophisticated customer value management on our fixed and mobile core business and strong ambitions on 5G private mobile networks. It also relies upon the takeoff of our secure connectivity platform, which is called Evolution platform, that generated over EUR 240 million in orders last year with nearly 60% customer growth in H2.

Beyond our core business, we are igniting new growth engines, leveraging platforms shared with the Orange Group. We are specifically targeting key areas such as private cloud and trusted agentic AI. We are also making investments in [ sensitive ] verticals such as health care and defense. On the latter, we combine our sovereign telco infrastructures with advanced technologies like cybersecurity, IoT, AI, edge computing and quantum technologies to offer a very differentiated value proposition. You will see several innovation announcements in all those areas at the Orange Business Summit on March 17. So stay tuned.

In parallel, we continue to focus on operational efficiency and invest into our own digital transformation to drastically increase automation and leverage AI at scale. And I'm also glad to announce today that we are moving to a new very ambitious chapter. We have entered into an exclusive negotiation with a global system integrator for a strategic noncapitalistic partnership to bring our transformation to the next levels in terms of scale. Our aim is to enhance our go-to-market reach, convey more volumes onto our platforms and bring more competitiveness to our international operations. You should expect to hear more from us on this topic in the coming weeks.

To summarize, our ambition is to leverage our very differentiated positioning and assets, including Orange Cyberdefense, to align with current market trends towards trusted solutions, ignite new growth engines and stabilize our overall revenue, our ongoing efforts to help to structurally reshape our mix of business, further driving the improvement of the EBITDAaL trend towards stabilization.

With that, let me now return the floor to Christel.

Thank you, Aliette, for the strong energy and commitment to transform Orange Business despite a difficult market environment. As you can see, we remain fully committed to transform, innovate and further drive the improvement of the EBITDAaL trend.

Before leaving the floor to Meini to present the MasOrange strategy, we are very proud of our binding agreement to acquire the remaining 50% of MasOrange from Lorca for EUR 4.25 billion. This transaction, which is expected to close in H1, is a major strategic move for the group. It expands our leadership in Europe and will represent a step change in cash generation for the group with our operating cash flow expanding double-digit and EPS mid-single-digit accretion. After this acquisition, the group revenues will amount to EUR 48 billion with a balanced portfolio between our different geographies.

In parallel, we have largely secured the refinancing of the MasOrange debt, and the credit agencies have confirmed our group ratings. We really look forward to building a bright future together that will bring new opportunities for Orange and all our customers in Spain.

I will now hand over to Meini to present the strategic view for MasOrange for the coming years.

Thank you so much, Christel. It's a great pleasure being here with you today. And I'm also happy because we have quite satisfactory results to present. But I want to start talking about our team. We have a great team, a team that was competing strongly just 2 years ago and now is acting within a sole organization and as a single team. And the results are tangible. We have been forming the biggest operator by a number of clients in Spain, and we continue to grow, which is not obvious if you have 40% market share. So the results are beyond what we could expect just 2 years ago.

From a business perspective, it's super clear that our bet on customer loyalty pays off. We will continue to work on improving customer experience and on the attachment of additional services and devices. We will also aim to grow in B2B. In B2B, our market share is still relatively low, around 20%, and we see strong potential to grow via broadening our service portfolio on one hand and increasing our channel presence on the other hand. On new business, super important. We are quite well on the track in diversification of our services. And how do we do it? We do it by partnering with Tier 1 companies in the Spanish market.

On the cost side, we are very confident to meet our targets on synergies. So the target for 2027 are around EUR 500 million run rate, and we have already materialized around EUR 350 million of that. And that enabled us to get to a double-digit growth in operating cash flow since inception, so since year 1. On the other hand, on financial costs, we had quite significant financial costs until now because we had a relevant leverage at the beginning of the joint venture. But with the full ownership of MasOrange by Orange, which we expect during H1 this year, we will materially benefit of the scale of Orange and we will be able to reduce significantly our financial costs.

Let's now review our financial outlook. So we expect the Spanish market to continue to be quite competitive. But, and that's the good news, we are committed to grow. We believe we will achieve low to mid-single-digit growth in revenues. And how do we achieve it? Through a balanced value volume strategy in the mass market, we will grow on B2B and new business, and we will continue to reduce churn in the market through increase of customer loyalty.

If you look at EBITDAaL. We foresee around a low single-digit growth of EBITDAaL throughout the period, but that considers around EUR 200 million noncash IRFS-related impact regarding PPA, so price purchase allocation, accounting. If we eliminate that, meaning if you look at the real underlying business performance, we see a mid-single-digit growth also in EBITDAaL. If we combine this growth of EBITDAaL with a reduction of CapEx, we foresee eCAPEX/sales ratio of around 12% by 2028. We will achieve a mid- to high single-digit CAGR growth of the operating cash flow between 2025 and '28.

Overall, and that is super important, we target a very material cash step-up over the next 3 years as a result of the improved operating cash flow and the interest cost reduction. If you look at 2026, we foresee a materialization of accumulated synergies of EUR 430 million, and we see a growth in EBITDAaL in line with our 3-year guidance.

Thank you so much. Now please provide a warm welcome to Laurent, who will talk about the important numbers, the financial trajectories and the capital allocation. Thank you.

Thank you, Meini. Congratulations to you and the teams. And good morning, everyone. This is definitively an exciting time for the group. And as you have seen, Orange has gone from strength to strength over the last 3 years. From a financial standpoint, we delivered a step-up of EUR 1.2 billion of free cash flow all-in. Going forward, our financial ambition is very clear: accelerate our free cash flow all-in generation fueled by growth and efficiency.

Let me start by taking a step back on what you heard and the business dynamics from our excellent colleagues. In France, led by Jerome, and in Europe, led by Marie-Noelle, we are operating in mature and challenging market environment. In this context, we are accelerating innovative, fast-growing business streams on both B2B and B2C such as cyber and retail adjacencies. We are managing our legacy transition with very clear plans fully under control, and we step up our efficiency projects to ramp up our profitability.

With the leadership position in Spain, MasOrange, driven by Meini, will continue to build momentum on new businesses, B2B and unlock synergies in a competitive market. In Africa and Middle East, Yasser, building on a balanced portfolio, we are leveraging the significant region potential. And I like very much the internal motto of the plan of Yasser, which I shared with you today, grow, grow, grow, simple and to the point. In Orange Business, led by Aliette, and in Cyber, led by Hugues, we are accelerating transformation and we'll seize new opportunities on trusted connectivity and cyber.

Overall, in common to all our business, our really focus is execution, in particular on OpEx and CapEx efficiency project implementation. And the expected outcome of all of this is super simple: accelerate free cash flow all-in generation.

This turns together into a strong financial playbook driven by our strategic ambition, customer intimacy, innovative growth and excellent at scale, with four dimensions: number one, top line growth accelerated by innovation; second, EBITDAaL minus CapEx step-up, driven by efficiency and scale; third, clear priority on free cash flow all-in and EPS step-up, our main value creation metrics; and fourth, obviously, sustainable and attractive shareholder return while protecting our strong balance sheet. Overall, by 2028, we will be unlocking significant cash headroom, putting us in a strong position.

Let's zoom on the operational efficiency, which is obviously a critical component of our financial playbook. Three main levers: one, AI at scale, as presented by Christel, to optimize our operation, improve customer experience and increase agility across the group, targeting EUR 600 million of value by 2028; second, step up our procurement transformation program with EUR 1 billion gross savings by 2028; third, operational efficiency, building on our scale to address cost savings and benefit from mutualization. This involve platforming, real estate optimization and shared services.

On the operational side, we drive our network and IT transformation road map, including decommissioning of our legacy network. All these levers lead to one goal: an increase of 2 points of EBITDAaL minus CapEx margin between '25 and '28 driven both by lower capital intensity of our business in a post fiber rollout world as well as OpEx efficiencies, evidenced by EUR 600 million OpEx savings in France presented by Jerome and EUR 300 million in Orange Business as presented by Aliette.

So let me wrap up on the key target of our division and our global equation, which is straightforward. Revenue growth plus efficiency is linked to double-digit cash generation uplift. Overall, we aim to increase our organic cash flow at a double-digit CAGR over the next 3 years, reaching around EUR 5.2 billion from EUR 3.65 billion today. The full consolidation of MasOrange will bring a significant step-up in our cash generation with double-digit accretion. Free cash flow all-in growth in the next 3 years will be also double digits and above organic cash flow growth, this assuming around EUR 500 million of license per year in average over the next 3 years and subordinated notes coupon remaining at less than EUR 200 million per year. Overall, if I assume EUR 700 million of flow below our organic cash flow, it would translate into a very simple numbers: a free cash flow all-in of around EUR 4.5 billion, a major step-up from EUR 2.8 billion in 2025.

But besides free cash flow generation, we are now focusing as well on earnings per share as a value creation metric. Why? Because we leave no stone unturned in Orange. We drive the company performance down to the net income in the same way as we drive the cash down to the free cash flow all-in. And with this in mind, we introduced a new performance indicator, adjusted earnings per share, to manage our underlying performance. Between '25 and '28, we are expecting the adjusted EPS to grow at a CAGR of around 10%, driven by EBITDAaL growth and accretion from the full consolidation of MasOrange. This will, in turn, step up our ROCE, which remains as well an important decision value creation metric. This positive impact will be partly offset, of course, by higher interest expense, mainly impacted by MasOrange net debt integration, income tax up in line with business performance and the progressive increase in minority interest related to Africa and Middle East momentum.

So let me move to a key point of our presentation today, capital allocation policy. I'm sure that you are eager to hear about that. Our North Star is very clear, sustainable value creation, and this is a driver of our capital allocation policy structured around four dimensions. First, clear focus on the balance sheet. Our leverage ratio should increase to around 2.4x by year-end '26 linked to the acquisition of MasOrange. We will focus on the progressive deleveraging to return to a net debt-to-EBITDAaL ratio of around 2x by 2028, excluding, of course, any potential impact of consolidation in France. This will secure our strong credit rating, a key asset for the group and gives us flexibility to finance by debt our M&A priorities.

Second, our M&A strategy is straightforward, focused on the French consolidation opportunity. Additionally, of course, we may look at bolt-on acquisition, in particular, on cyber on Africa and Middle East being very strict, trust me, on conditions to clear value creation. Third, disciplined CapEx management. We'll maintain a disciplined CapEx policy to reach around 14% in eCAPEX/sales by 2028. Finally, a clear priority on attractive shareholder remuneration. All of these initiatives will be pursued while preserving an attractive dividend policy with progressive dividend growth. Altogether, by 2028, we will have significant cash headroom putting us in a very strong position.

So let me zoom on the shareholder return remuneration. We are proud to say that the Orange stock delivered 82% of total shareholder return over the past 3 years, end '22 to end '25, outperforming its sectors and the CAC 40. This is illustrating definitively our Lead of future solid execution and credibility. In terms of dividends, as you know, we gradually increased sustainably our dividend from EUR 0.70 in '22 to EUR 0.75 for 2025. And we aim to sustain this momentum thru a rock-solid progressive dividend growth. From 2026, our dividend will increase by 5% to EUR 0.79, and we are introducing a new dividend floor at EUR 0.85 for 2028.

So let me wrap up before handing over to Christel to present our guidance with our financial priorities which are super clear: one, focus every day on execution as we have done during lead the future; two, to step up our free cash flow all-in generation; and third, execute our clear allocation priorities, leading to significant headroom by 2028.

Christel, back to you.

Thank you, Laurent. As mentioned yesterday at our full year results presentation, have successfully achieved all our 2025 financial targets, including 2 guidance upgrades in 2025 with a 3.8% EBITDAaL growth that accelerated throughout the year and eCAPEX discipline in line with our guidance. Both led to the significant growth of our organic cash flow. We confirm the dividend at EUR 0.75 for 2025.

Looking ahead to 2026, at current perimeter, excluding MasOrange reconsolidation, we anticipate a circa 3% EBITDAaL growth and an organic cash flow of circa EUR 4 billion. Our eCAPEX/sales ratio will remain at around 15%. The planned reconsolidation of MasOrange in 2026 should enable us to confirm these guidances and will be accretive on our organic cash flow. Our leverage will increase temporarily, and our midterm target of circa 2x net debt-to-EBITDAaL remains unchanged. Regarding the dividend, we plan to increase it to EUR 0.79 per share for 2026.

For our midterm outlook, we include MasOrange as we are very confident on the closing in H1 2026. We anticipate a circa 3% EBITDAaL CAGR growth between 2025 and 2028 in CAGR on a comparable basis post consolidation of MasOrange. We will maintain a disciplined CapEx policy with a decrease of eCAPEX/sales ratio to circa 14% by 2028. This will enable us to generate a strong organic cash flow of around EUR 5.2 billion in 2028. As Laurent already mentioned, we remain committed to a progressive dividend growth with a new dividend floor of EUR 0.85 in 2028. Finally, we will protect our solid balance sheet with a midterm net debt-to-EBITDAaL target of 2x to be achieved by 2028, excluding a potential transaction in France.

To summarize our Trust the future plan, based on our solid Lead the future foundation and with trust at the core, we will focus on customer intimacy, innovative growth and excellence at scale. This is a robust plan and, together with all the leadership team, we are determined to deliver on strong cash step-up. We will also continue fostering greater team engagement and skills development to sustain our momentum. The success of our Africa/Middle East growth strategy is expected to continue. Our accelerated transformation efforts, combined with CapEx reduction in our mature markets, will foster cash flow and EPS growth.

The full reconsolidation of MasOrange will drive a positive shift in our group profile and strengthen our cash generation capabilities. Looking ahead, we remain committed to maintaining attractive shareholder returns while consolidating our solid position within investment-grade ratings. Finally, the potential consolidation in France could further accelerate efficiency and value creation.

What are the ingredients of the success of this plan? We are focusing on what we control. We will maintain a relentless focus on execution as we've done in the last 3 years. You have the commitment of the leadership team and as well as the entire Orange Group.

And the management team and I are now ready to answer your questions just after a short video.

[Presentation]

So I think Laurent is going to be back in a second this year. Okay. So we are now ready to begin the Q&A session to ensure we can give as many people as possible the opportunity to participate. We kindly ask that you limit yourselves to 1 or 2 questions. If we are unable to take your questions today, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. We will start with questions from the room before moving on to questions from our online audience.

So our first question will be from Josh #2.

It's Josh Mills from BNP Paribas. First question, just a bit of a clarification on the free cash flow guidance. Could you give us a bit more of a building, I'd like to understand how much contribution MASORANGE is going to be providing to that EUR 5.2 billion figure? And then maybe a bit of a steer on the phasing of that free cash flow ramp up during the period as well would be helpful.

And then secondly, I wanted to come back to one of the potential risks of the guidance, which has been presented today. So in the introduction, you talked about a EUR 500 million contribution, both in consumer and B2B from digital services cloud computing, et cetera. Given the concerns we're seeing more broadly about AI disruption, disrupting traditional IT services companies, what do you think gives Orange the right to play in that space? What unique advantages do you have? And to be quite specific within the free cash flow uplift guidance which we provide is, how much of that free cash flow uplift is assumed to come from those digital services.

Laurent, you take the cash flow and then I'll take the...

So thanks, Josh, for your question. So on the free cash flow of EUR 5.2 billion, as we said, MASORANGE is contributing a double-digit acquisition, if I just be a bit more specific, we have seen the latest analysts, which are reporting EUR 700 million to EUR 800 million of organic cash flow by 2028 in MASORANGE, and this is a kind of fair and ballpark numbers that you should assume into this. So globally, EUR 1.6 billion of cash uplift, EUR 700 million, EUR 800 million in MASORANGE and the rest on the current group perimeters altogether.

Then coming back to our growth plan for B2B and the potential disruption of AI in that First of all, as you know, and that's true already for the past 3 years, we moved our strategy where, indeed, we talk about IT and IS, but the core of the value we bring is platform. We rely on the scale, the networks, the infrastructure and also the know-how cybersecurity. This will not be disrupted with AI.

On the contrary, actually, AI accelerates cyber threats. And that's why the name of the plan trust the future because that's -- and most of the discussion we have with customers, of course, connectivity will not be disrupted by AI. We can discuss about what's going to be the impact of AI on the traffic on our networks. But with fiber networks, we know we have what's needed. But in terms of services for B2B, I mean, connectivity will remain cloud will remain companies are all looking for trusted solution to store their data, to deploy AI and to be able, especially in the current environment to scale. And that's something that I don't know, Aliette, maybe you want to comment because we see day-to-day. So our business model is really not IT integration. We are not an IT integrator company. We rely on our strength, which is really infrastructure platforms and of course, know-how, especially cybersecurity.

Indeed, I mean, not much to add, but we are not a standard digital services company. We are leveraging platforms, as Christel just said, and those platforms. They are rooted into the orange sovereign infrastructures, which is very differentiating. And they are also shared with the Orange Group, both for our internal needs and our B2B clients, and this gives us lots of credibility toward our clients, and we see very, very high demand at the moment on whether it's on private cloud or on trusted AI at large.

So we'll take our next question from Akhil #2.

I've got 2 questions as well, please, if I can. The first one is on culture and innovation. Christel, you talked a lot at the beginning of your presentation around what you've done as an organization to try and create change. I think if I heard correctly, you said across your top 300 people, you've made change across 60% of that. What I'd really love to understand is what are the routes you're using to drive that change? So is it internal mobility? Is it external hiring? If you're doing these things, how are you doing it? And what does it really mean in terms of the way the organization is structured. Because if you're trying to drive innovation, are you creating verticals across the businesses to create and drive the innovation? Are you doing it locally? So just a bit of color to understand what you're really doing to change the business going forward?

And then the second question for Laurent is on capital allocation. Firstly, Laurent, you mentioned to the prior question, EUR 700 million to EUR 800 million for as Orange's sensible ballpark. I just wanted to clarify, does it include the debt refinancing or not? So just to understand, is that stand-alone or is that inclusive of addressing the debt. But the bigger picture is, when we look at your all-in cash guidance for 2028, there's obviously a very impressive ramp, and I appreciate you have M&A on the horizon. But how are you at least conceptually thinking midterm around dividend payout ratio? Because implicitly, it looks like by 2028, you'd be sitting roughly at about 50-something percent dividend payout ratio. How do you conceptually think about accepting of course, there being on loans around M&A?

Thanks, Akhil. So on the culture and innovation and don't take me wrong, we're not arrived yet. So it's a journey and you don't change a company culture in a few years. This is a 10-year journey. But what we are doing is really, first of all, talking about what's not working because I think a company that wants to innovate has to fail. And we come from a world where innovation in the telecom industry has actually come from 2G, 3G, 4G. So the innovation was more in standardization and then rolling out big mobile networks. But what we are doing is, of course, and when we said we have this innovative growth initiative, we spent time looking at what are those pockets of growth that we have in the company, and we have them already.

And we talk to the teams in charge whilst preventing them from growing faster. And sometimes, it's having the right skills because if we think about ad tech or cybersecurity or home security, it's not at all a telecom background, that's -- and very often, we think about being the incumbent that has the biggest market share, you have to have the mindset of a challenger.

By the way, I'm very excited to have a challenger in the team now with Mini. And I tell you some of the debates between Jerome and Mini are very exciting because you have -- even though Jerome comes from Middle East and Africa, where -- but the mindset of being an incumbent in a country like France. I mean this is great. It's a fantastic asset, but we have a mindset of being a fortress because of regulation. And of course, everything we do, we are scrutinized. And of course, our competitors are agile and trying to compete.

In Spain, we are now a leader in Spain in terms of volume, but we have this challenger mindset. And we compare how we make decision. And very often, it's really -- it comes back to having the right people, having the right incentives, having the right allocation of budget and also calling it short when it fails. I mean we've learned also because let's -- I mean, we know we closed Orange Bank.

We lost a lot with the banking activity. I don't want -- and the message I said internally, the idea of Orange Bank was a good one. It's the execution that was -- I mean, what it was. So the objective is really to assume that we will -- we have the right to fail we should then adjust. We need short-term objectives, and we need top management priority on those initiatives.

Because if you run the EUR 17 billion business like Jerome does, I mean, why would you spare time, not just euro, but his leadership team on an initiative that's today EUR 50 million, that has the potential to grow to EUR 150 million. So it's really time allocation at top and then the right people, the right incentive governance around allocated capital as well. So that's what we are driving.

And of course, with our Orange innovation, we have this unique ability at group level to work with the best tech partners and you need the size and even being orange, we're small compared to some of those tech giants. So that's really what we bring. But again, it's a journey but listen and message number 1 is we have to assume we will fail. And we have to learn fast, we'd rather fail fast, not lose money, then failed too long down the road. On the capital allocation.

And so on your question on the cash, so EUR 700 million to EUR 800 million is including, of course, the interest related to the MASORANGE debt. And of course, this MASORANGE debt will be refinanced with better condition using, of course, the strength of the group. And this is what we have done with mature by these 2 jumbo bonds that we have submitted and emitted end of '25, early I mean on the capital allocation, this is more a post '28 question. So that's far down the road. But conceptually, what is clear is that with EUR 4.5 billion of assumed free cash flow all in by 2028, we have significant headroom, as I say, and you can do the math, very simple.

Our priority is clearly the consolidation in France, which will be a significant step in terms of business and value creation. And then, of course, there is plenty of ways in which shape or form this consolidation could take place, and we want to keep this headroom to feed this M&A priority moving forward.

So we'll now take a question on row #3. Nick?

Nick Lyall from Berenberg. Could I ask on the Orange France guidance, please. The retail revenue ex PSTN seems pretty flat for the next 3 years. given the good subs numbers, that doesn't suggest that you think things are turning around fast in terms of ARPU. So could you please give us a little bit of an update on your expectations you've baked into guidance there?

And then secondly, back on your point, Laurent, just on the value creation from the M&A. Could you give us a clue on what sort of synergies you might expect. Is this all market appear in revenue? Or is there potential OpEx synergies in there as well. Could you help us out, please, on what your current due diligence is showing you?

Yes, you're right mentioning that the French market on the retail side remains very competitive. So we expect our retail excluding PSTN to be stable or the period of the plan. that basically based on the fact that we think we can go even further in terms of churn management and decreasing churn on both mobile and broadband. And as you know, our acquisition machine or sales machine is going full fledged, as you saw in our results of Q4 and 2025. So we want to keep that momentum, shield our market share. And shielded, in particular, with churn management mechanism and while the customer intimacy -- the plan is very important for us.

And then we want to push for value, as I mentioned, by upselling, cross-selling and 2 ways for that. We have a very strong momentum on convergent services. We still have room to go for increasing our convergent base with an increasing as well. And as we just mentioned, we have lots of opportunities in adjacencies as well, which are sometimes little reverse today is from home protection to cybersecurity for residential and professional to insurance, to orange advertising platform which can be scaled and which will contribute as well to the growth of our retail business in France.

Yes. And I think -- I mean,. Overall, we could object -- I mean, internally, of course, I'm not targeting the teams and say, look, we should be flat. But the reality is that we know the market is extremely competitive. We have -- we don't know what's going to happen on market consolidation. So we'd rather plan for something that is not changing from what we see today and then work on our efficiency and what it means to operate in a market that could be indeed difficult in the years to come. That doesn't mean we're not investing on those growth initiatives and on doing everything we said in the plan.

On the value creation from consolidation, I mean no difference between what we see for floors from what we've seen in Spain. It creates massive synergies. So the value comes from synergies, bringing mobile customers on our network creates synergies, bringing broadband customers on our fiber create synergies. And of course, we can look at all the synergies we've been driving in Spain, the same recipe would apply in a scenario in France.

And I think that's very important because I think that's one of the key regulatory item. Our competition authorities for, I don't know, good or bad reason, are not integrating those synergies and the efficiency in the way they look at market consolidation.

Efficiency is what's going to help us continue to invest. And also efficiency is somehow the guarantee that we can continue to offer cheap prices in markets where -- there's less volume growth because our market share are mature and 3 competing players in a market with low growth is probably as, if not more competitive than 4 players in a growth market.

So we'll now move to a question from the online audience. We have a question from David Wright. David, please go ahead.

I hope you guys can hear me okay, and I apologize for not being there. But a question for Mini. Your advertising platform at MASORANGE is looks to be one of the most innovative in the European telecom sector. So one question is just how much contribution is that making to the 2028 guidance. I doubt it's so much. But what I would like to ask you is to just give us a little blue sky imagination on that platform. It looks like it has amazing potential and of course, not just in Spain but across the group. But where could you really go with that?

Mini loves blue sky, yes.

Well, I think data is the oil of the future. And we, as operators, have a lot of data about customers. I'm not talking so much about personal data, but consumer behavior, location-based data. We know we have network data increasingly available because network data is getting exposed. We're talking a lot about open Gateway. Open Gateway is a fantastic opportunity to verify the identity of the users.

Now in a world where we don't know who is fake, who is real, that's a super asset that we have as operators. To be concrete on the advertising platform, what does it mean? We are not a marketing agency. What we do is to connect advertisers and we have Tier 1 advertisers, IKEA, Coca-Cola in Spain, et cetera. with segmented and qualified audiences. What does it mean that if somebody wants to direct a campaign to a very micro -- more micro segment of clients, we are able to offer the advertiser segment.

And what is the effect that we increase the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns by factor 2 or 3. So it's a fantastic news. It would be relevant the contribution. I mean I'm not allowed to give exact guidance right now on that. But what we see is that the new business area that is quite small in terms of volume, it's quite relevant in terms of margin and the margin contribution will be increasing significantly over the next few years.

So we'll take our next question from Stephane, row #2.

Stephane from ODDO, 2 questions, if I can. The first 1 is you mentioned network sharing in savings. I was just curious if that includes and sharing and if you have any appetite for hand sharing in which geographies.

And my second question is regarding the copper dismantling that you mentioned on Slide 28. So there is no impact in EBITDA because you've basically provisioned it. What sort of cash impact do you think that could be in 2028? And overall, I'm just trying to understand the economics of that plan because we just beat 2028. But what sort of benefits accumulated over the dismainting of the copper you're expecting versus that provision of EUR 1.7 billion that you've done?

Yes. Thank you, Stephane. So absolutely network sharing means run sharing. And we already have many RAN-sharing agreements. We have 1 in Spain. We have 1 in Belgium with Proximus. We have 1 with Vodafone in Romania. We have 1 with Dutch Telecom in Poland. Every run sharing agreement is sometimes a bit different, sometimes in some only rural areas sometimes we split the location. So there are different mechanism. But we know this will continue because more and more the virtualization and the softwarization of radio technology allows to share the infrastructure, the physical infrastructure, but still to differentiate the way we want to organize the networks for 2 players. And I'm sure this is something we'll continue. So we will definitely continue.

That's true also for -- I mean, when we talk about fiber, when we say we want to optimize, I mean, you see what we've done in Spain with premium fiber Spain is typically a market where there was a lot of overbuild. And sometimes, it's because the regulation environment or there's no incentive to reuse existing fiber because wholesale agreements are not attractive and it's cheaper to roll out fiber. That's what happened in many areas in Spain.

Now of course, that doesn't apply to rural areas. So every country is different, but it's really country by country that we're optimizing, but the mindset is really given -- and this is not just for Orange, all telecom operators want to optimize their investments. And so driving efficiency by sharing is absolutely the way to go. On the copper dismantling, first and before, I mean Laurent provides more numbers. I mean just think about the massive industrial projects that is. We have to go into every single little city in France and to decommission, which really means at some point to cut the fiber, the copper, not the fiber, the copper cable.

One big challenge in that project is to make sure the copper is not stolen before we can extract it and sell it. So there's a lot of assurance and industrial project has been also focused on making sure the value does not get extracted for someone else. And that's key also, and we've made some assumptions. And of course, unfortunately, we know how much we lost this year. I mean we don't know because you never know what you don't know, but we're working a lot with the security, I mean, authorities as well because it's something that when copper cable is cut even if there's only 1 customer left on that copper that creates, I mean, customer in satisfaction, and that's bad on top of the fact that, of course, it may be lost value. On the numbers?

Yes. So Stephane, so on the economics of this, so the cost is -- of the dismantling is around EUR 1.7 billion. This is what we have provisioned in the account end of '25. And as you say, hence, no EBITDA impact moving forward. But in terms of economic -- the cost is 1.7. The expected copper sales will be slightly higher than 1.7. So we see overall an economic cash slightly positive between the copper sale minus the dismantling cost. If I look at the cash impact of it on a yearly basis, just to give you a sense, we are expecting a similar trend in terms of this positive -- small positive cash in '25, '26, '27, '28. So no major evolution in terms of trends versus what we have seen in 2025.

So we'll take our next question from Mathieu, row #4.

I had 2 questions, please. First on France, you gave a very detailed guidance about the retail and wholesale trends. And the question I had was you talked about the wholesale linked to copper that will decline, as you explained. But there are other elements in wholesale, which are always very difficult, certainly for us to model and specifically cofinancing and maybe on backhaul, we see other players deploy their own backhaul. So is your guidance assuming that all these wholesale revenues remain stable during the guidance period? Or do you have offsetting factors that would play against the potential declines?

And then I had a question around AI and Christel, you kind of touch it briefly on it, but obviously, you lay out some revenue opportunities and efficiency opportunities. A question I have, and I understand it's early days, but is there any signs that AI could drive traffic in a substantial way on the B2C market. And if that's the case, your network configured for that type of traffic, which could have different characteristics than the usual one. And therefore, could it mean more CapEx. So really the opportunity there.

Yes. On the wholesale trajectory in France, I mean, we answered some of the questions we know you had and what's going to be the impact of the copper decommissioning. So that's why we were very transparent on what's going to be the impact. Now a lot of the business we do in France. And as we said, infrastructure remains a very important business for us. So there will be growth with fiber wholesale in France because as we continue to fill our networks, this will generate growth.

And then we have MVNO types of agreement. Of course, we have the civil works. I mean our polls are used and this is something that is stabilized. But of course, then it's more the regulation that could impact. But there's definitely continue to be growth on this part of the business.

The cofinancing is something that, first of all, does not rely on us, so it's difficult to plan. And there could be -- and we've seen, I mean you look at the past 5 years, there could be some investment. We know I mean, how much our competitors have already cofinanced or not. So we know somehow what could happen.

Now think just about what could happen to SFR that may have an impact, I would say, in the next year. So it's very difficult for us to plan and that could indeed have some impact. But overall, we plan for something that is consistent. And then, of course, we would have to adapt if things come earlier than planned or later, but no big impact to be expected overall, of course, no impact on our guidance.

Right. On the other wholesale, if I put aside cofinancing, as you say, Christel, because there is always a phasing not in our hands. But the rest, there is plus and minus, plus on the FTTH fiber, as you say, minus on the pin construction, for instance, you can expect something roughly stable, slightly negative, but no massive evolution compared to the '25 situation.

On the impact of AI on our traffic and our networks, I mean it's -- first of all, it's very difficult and whoever has a crystal ball may answer that question. But we see very different trends. My deep conviction is that, ultimately, what's going to drive where AI is used is power availability of power. Because, I mean, the large data centers today, the bottleneck is power. Of course, China has a lot of power available, so they go faster. If you see what's happening on devices, handsets, I mean the big debates on how much compute do we put in a device to be able to have AI assistance that could drive a real-time translation, which we know is something that customers expect.

The challenge is going to be power consumption of the devices because nobody wants to be able to have to recharge its device every 2 hours. So power will be the guiding force. Today, the way we use AI is still very much based on text. So text, limited impact.

Of course, video AI, the new, I mean, agentic AI, this very uncertain. It's still again, how much we've been talking about edge computing and the fact that our networks could become equipped, if everyone were classes real-time. No doubt this will have impact on our networks. This is something that our Orange innovation team are very passionate to learn and to try to research.

Now the reality is, I mean, who's going to pay for it, et cetera. So we know we have the infrastructure that's required. The question about should we invest in compute capacity at the edge now because eventually, there will be traffic not yet. I mean, really not something we see the need. So as we said, our CapEx in any case is value driven. And again, given we own the infrastructure, we have the flexibility to test, to learn, but really today, the impact of traffic very limited in terms of volume.

Now the mix of traffic, the traffic generated by AI, we think that 2/3 of the traffic by 2030 will be AI-generated type of traffic. We see that already. If you look at our networks, and this is something that we'll continue to invest in and innovate. Our networks are filtering bad traffic, spams, pumps, cyber attacks every day. And this, unfortunately, is not something that anybody wants to pay for, whether you're a company or you're an individual. But this is something that AI is generating. You see the debate on social networks.

And today, the big challenge is to understand even if you -- I mean, the threat, and that's why I trust the future. I mean if you pick up the phone, are you really talking to the person you think is calling you the more you dive into the art of the possible with AI, the more difficult. And this is something where, as a telecom operator, we truly think we can bring a response.

So we'll take our next question from Roshan, row #2.

It's Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank. Two questions, please. My first one is on the Africa Middle East unit. It's possible to delve down a bit more to see which are particular markets you would call out in driving that high single-digit growth. And to that point, I guess, you consistently kind of have upgraded over delivered on the Africa Middle East unit and double-digit growth, I think, 13% in '25. So is there an element of conservatism in that high single digit at this stage?

And secondly, just moving on back to France. We've seen -- we are seeing this mix shift within the kind of volumes that you are adding. So how are the levers or how should we see the levers that you are pulling to maintain the stable revenue growth. Is that just the premiums or you charge for 5G, fiber? Could we see more targeted price increases, which I think you've done in the past. Anything you could say around that, very helpful.

Should I leave the floor to Yasser, we had interesting debates on the guidance because Yasser has been the CEO of Egypt. And Egypt was clearly an outperformer, and Yasser is a very ambitious CEO. But no, Yasser, of course, you know the reason which will drive the...

Yes. So just without going into specific countries, but maybe in general, which I think is the most important part, in the 18 countries, 16 consolidated. We have 10 countries that are growing more than double digits. And we have no single country representing more than 15% of our footprint. So it means that we have a very well dynamics that will enable us to continue the growth. Maybe we will share that we're a bit conservative off-line, online, this is whatever we want to talk to.

Yes, the CEO...

But at the end of the day, very, very confident that we're much with this portfolio and with 10 countries growing, maybe it will not be the same next year or this year. and will not be the same the year after. In the plan, in fact, it's not. So countries are changing. We have certain countries that go certain problems this year that are not the same afterwards.

But this portfolio, Orange Middle East Africa will treat it as 1 country, it's not. So it's very risk adverse. So in fact, due to this portfolio, we believe that we will sustain this growth, and it's not 1 or 2 countries that are delivering this growth. So it's not like other players in the region. On the contrary, it's 10 countries that are driving this growth. So it's more than 50% of the footprint that is driving that growth. Of course, Egypt was one of them, but many others are one of them and many others are helping in this growth.

Laurent, you want to add on the guidance?

No, I think that we have a very solid high single-digit guidance. That's what I will say as a wrap up, and we have a very resilient footprint, and we have a very strong leadership team, very strong.

In terms of -- to drive value up. First is to focus very much on the quality of the base and keeping our base as I was mentioning before to shield our market share and making sure we continue to improve churn in churn management, even if we have the lowest churn in the market.

Second is to upsell and look for a value increase every time we can. When I talk about upsell, there are 2 ways to drive it. First is upsell during the act of selling, and we've been improving a lot, and we continue to improve in our channel management to make sure that when the customer enters in our shop with the pricing idea in mind, our sales force is able to drive the value up and drive a mix of sale up. We've been progressing a lot on that, and we'll continue to do that in every channel.

Second one is to manage upsell on the base, and for that, as you were saying, we managed to increase the value of the packages, for instance, with the Livebox Max, including contents in which is now very popular. We are able to upsell customers from a normal fiber offer up to a full triple PlayPlus subscription VOD services. And that's a way to increase -- move customers to highest packages.

Of course, there is convergence as well. And as we said before, we have the opportunity to move more customers. We still have fishing pool to attract Orange broadband nonmobile and Orange mobile non-broadband customers. This is why the CVM is so important for us. And we are as well investing a lot in AI, in our customer value management and customer base management tools.

And last but not least, the contribution of additional nonconnectivity services, so the adjacent services as we were presenting before which are way as well to increase ARPU and increase value for first customers. No big assumption on the price increase back book, let's say, there are always opportunity and tactical moves that we do every year on that. But I mean the protection of value relies more on the other levers have been mentioning before.

So we'll take our next question from Moline, row #1.

I have 2, please. Firstly, just on enterprise. -- you're saying that you're going to have around EUR 300 million in savings, but that looks like it's ex cyber defense. So will CyberDefense OpEx be dilutive or on top of that? And then kind of more broadly, could you give us a little bit more detail on building blocks to return to growth?

And then my second question is just on CapEx. The EUR 300 million in savings. Is that 100% from the fiber envelope? Or are there other material factors in that?

So on the Orange business trajectory, I mean, within that segment, as we said, we have Orange CyberDefense, and we manage it separately -- of course, Orange CyberDefense has its profitability objective and they are driving it, but we manage it so that they have the ability to invest for growth given it's a growth segment when on connectivity and Orange business, we have the legacy where we have to really optimize on the cost.

On the savings and the different growth, the way we look at Orange business is also international France global customers who have an international footprint and then France local customers. And that's also for us driving the way we allocate investment, and we drive efficiency. Aliette, do you want to...

Yes. And overall, what will sustain the growth in the coming years is -- so first, we will keep on protecting our core business, especially in France with a lot of value-based management as well on both on fixed and mobile. And as I mentioned earlier, we have being now a leading global position on secure connectivity with a platform that we've built in the past years with an exponential growth on this segment at the moment where we really aim at capturing market shares in the coming years. And on top of this, we are making investments on private cloud, especially in Europe and on trusted Agentic AI, and we will make a few announcements in the coming weeks on this topic.

Our next question will be from...

On the CapEx yes, do you want to...

Yes. On the CapEx, I start briefly and then Geron, please. No, I think that it's more than fiber. There is a different dynamic as well with the customer CPE, but Geron, maybe you...

Of course, a lot of it is coming from the fact that we've been almost achieving the fiber deployment in France. Of course, it will decrease over time in the years to come. But we have still some buckets that we need to invest in, particularly the customer CapEx for installation and the Livebox and set-top box, which is a part of it. We are refreshing our mobile run as well to -- and we have a new core network and the move to cloud of our IT systems and networks is as well contributing to the remaining CapEx.

But all in all, we said we commit to a EUR 300 million decreased minimum. And we identify -- we have already identified where that should come from in our different buckets of CapEx without jeopardizing our number one position in quality of service and network quality in France, which is a great asset for us.

And that's a 2-point reduction on CapEx to sales in an environment where total sales in France because of the company commissioning is decreasing.

Okay. so we'll take next question from Carl, row #1.

That's great. Carl Murdock-Smith from Citi. I want to bring it back to Africa again, given how much of your group growth is represented by that. I've been confused by consent us for a while because consensus seems to have CapEx to sales reducing in the next few years. And obviously, your guidance for the next 3 years is for stable at about 17%. But consensus had it going down to below 16% CapEx to sales and then 15% by the end of the decade. Given the growth that you're seeing in Africa, why would you let up, why would you stop investing? And basically, can you just confirm, am I right that consensus is wrong?

And then secondly, you also talk about Africa and the Middle East as well in terms of the acquisitions alongside the consolidation in France and bolt-ons inside your France. Can you just talk about that a bit more as well? Are we talking about capability-led acquisitions or could that be geographic acquisitions as well?

You want to report to the consensus?

No, I think that -- yes, but it's very clear. We the engine of growth of Africa is CapEx because the day you come with a new antenna in a new place where there is no connection, you get revenues in 24 months, 18 months, the money is back. So that's exactly the equation that Yasser and the team are driving, and that's why we feel that we will stay at a stable around 17% of CapEx over sales over the next 3 years and then later on, we'll see.

So no reduction for the next 3 years, at least our CapEx to say.

And sales increases. So CapEx to sales...

The CapEx, yes, an absolute amount is going up. And of course, we're, again, investing in very also smartly and it has to also go down that we have also more and more efficiencies in CapEx. So it's not only even the sales that is growing, which CapEx is growing in absolute terms. But there's also efficiency inside the CapEx usually year-over-year between 5% to 10% efficiency that we drive on top of the same amount of CapEx that we invest. So in fact, it's a double increase, if you want, on efficiency of the CapEx that we're doing.

And then on M&A and related to the EMEA region, I mean, as we say bolt-on, and we are looking at both opportunity and geo expansion we talk about bolt-ons, so don't put the list of the big country names because that wouldn't be -- that wouldn't qualify as bolt-on. And again, always, if there is value to be created and we've proved in the past that we acquired operation, we turned them around and significantly I have names in mind of countries, but I want to mention them here.

But so we know we have an engine where we can create value with geo expansion based on our model of shared services centers, skills best skills shared across the countries and then -- and we have the talent in the region with country CEOs that move from 1 country to another, and they are really talent from the region. So that's -- so geo expansion is definitely one.

Now we haven't done some actually, we've been looking at some. Sometimes they don't materialize. But again, that's something we want to flag. And then we may also want to look at bolt-on to feed our Max-It money trajectory. And so that would be, of course, different, probably not I mean that qualifies at bolt-on definitely.

We'll take our next question from Andrew, row #3.

I just wanted to talk about CapEx, but in the context of France instead and see if I can persuade you to talk about post 2028 capital intensity. I mean once you've completed the switch off of copper in 2030, it seems not only will you have benefit of a lower maintenance cost for network, but also essentially on balance sheet, it will only be 2/3 of the country -- aside from CPE and routers, Obviously, you want to invest a lot in mobile to keep up your position in that market. But it feels like there should be another step down in capital intensity that could be quite material. Just wondered if you could talk about that.

Well, that's what -- I mean, of course, the copper ends in 2030, not 2028, but that's what we've said that we see, I mean, continued efficiency on CapEx. The big question mark is in the industry is 6G. Let's be clear, we're not planning for it. And the reality today is that the CapEx in our mobile network is really to decommission 2G, 3G, to move to 4G, 5G because that's really driving efficiency for us on the cost of every gigabit of traffic we have on our network because that's really the objective to have competitiveness in the way we have -- we manage the traffic on our network. And then, of course, customer CapEx is something we would always favor. But yes, you're right that CapEx efficiency will continue beyond 2028.

So we'll take our next question from Ondrej, row #1.

Ondrej from UBS. Two questions for us all, please. First on France. I just want to understand the, I guess, dynamics beyond 2028 in terms of especially the potential EBITDA acceleration, right? Because you've got a little of drag now related to copper and the wholesale part at least seems like it could finally kind of turn to at least neutral, if not back to growth. sometime in 2029, 2030? And then in terms of the efficiencies, I just wanted to understand how much of efficiencies related to copper specifically, which the companies that have already shut down their legacy networks have had pretty material amounts of. So how much in the EUR 600 million of efficiencies by 2028 in France? Are you foreseeing from this copper shutdown. And is it fair to assume that beyond 2028, these efficiencies will actually step up, therefore, in combination with maybe a much better wholesale picture we can see an acceleration in EBITDAL in France just conceptually beyond 2028. That's the first question.

Second question related to Spain. Mini, I hope your bespoke sneakers, first of all, are a sign of strong commitment to the business. But then on a more serious note, the kind of EBITDA number related to, first of all, the top line, which is up to mid-single digit, the residual efficiencies or synergies which alone kind of should yield close to low single-digit growth on EBITDA, plus the other stuff that you, I think, have flagged in the past, such as work on reducing churn, all kind of put together, make it seem like the EBITDA growth is a bit less than what these things could kind of point towards. So my question would be, is there a lot of reinvestment, for example, into some of these new platforms that you're developing assumed for the next couple of years? Or why would the operating leverage in this business not be as high as all of these various data points which suggest?

So on France, of course, it's too early to comment post 2028. But on the -- I mean, the copper decommissioning will continue after '28 and so in terms of headwind coming from loss of wholesale revenue, we still have, as we mentioned, a EUR 300 million of copper-related reuse that would still disappear after 2028. So that's on the impact, of course, moving forward. Now if we come to the efficiency that we are describing to be able to stabilize the EBITDA while we transition the copper most of this efficiency is not copper related even though copper, we think, represents 15%. EUR 100 million on the EUR 600 million. Actually, when I -- and this is something that Jean-Francois Fallacher had launched in France, but we have I get from the notes, 350 initiatives to drive operational efficiency. So it's really, I mean, a lot of work, and this has come also from bottom up I mean, Oral France is a huge organization.

And part of those efficiency is also to simplify the work on a day-to-day basis of our, I mean, front office and technicians in the field. So really, it's Copper has an impact, but it's really not the only driver of those efficiencies.

If I may add on that. It's a program which is very well managed. And as Christel mentioned, it's more than 350 initiatives targeting all cost buckets and all efficiency levels. with a monthly follow-up on each of them. So that's -- it's tackling really everything, as we mentioned, from operational from operations improvement to sourcing and procurement as well. So it's quite diversified, let's say, we have a good pipe.

And just to be precise the EUR 300 million is RTC and wholesale, so comparable with EUR 800 million. So we see minus [ EUR 825 million in '28 ] minus EUR 300 million later on. So you see that end of 28, we would have done a very large part of the transition when it comes to the copper-related revenues. And after '28, the cost of maintenance of the copper network will become marginal.

Mini, Spain.

Yes. Thank you for your question. I can confirm that the EBITDA development is not due to the investment in the shoes give you to this is a low-cost merchandising that is very successful in Spain. Look, if you look -- talk about bottom line, I think we should focus on cash flows. Operating cash flows and total free cash flow. Here, the guidance is mid- to high single digit. I think that reflects very well the business performance. And with the interest rate reduction that we are expecting after closing of the deal, this further increases. So that will be very material.

Having said that, EBITDA is affected by accounting effects. I mentioned before, there is a noncash accounting effect of around EUR 200 million within the period. Obviously, this is considered in this low single-digit guidance. And we're talking about the guidance. You know for quite some years. We are here to meet and hopefully exceed the guidance, and that's our aspiration.

So we'll move from question from the online audience. We have a question from Fernando Cordero. Please go ahead, Fernando.

My 2 questions. The first question is on Spain as well. And I want to check out widen the guidance that you have provided is already including further efficiencies in your mobile network. You are currently having a negotiating agreement with Vodafone Espana. And just to understand if you are including further, let's say, scope of the right sharing.

And the second question is related also with CapEx as in previous ones. But on a more broader basis, given all the discussion around consolidation at the European level, I would like to understand which is your view on -- or what is the risk that you perceive on your long-term CapEx target of 14% if in market consolidation is going to happen given that presumably the core objective of the regulators if they allow consolidation is to increase CapEx in the sector -- just to understand your views on that front.

Thank you, Fernando. Good questions. On the -- I will let Mini, of course, many comment, but on the efficiencies. I mean, as you know, we have a run sharing with Vodafone in Spain. We do not -- as we said, this is a plan that does not assume that has not assumed any non -- any capitalistic change in the way we drive. Now of course, any efficiency we would have on the run and the radio network, we would definitely include it and we need absolutely more efficiency.

Thank you. So there is no extraordinary operation included in our business plan. It's business as usual. Obviously, we're working continuously on increasing efficiencies in our networks. But if you refer to so-called Runco project, it's not on the table right now.

And then when it comes to our CapEx guidance and national consolidation, as we said, first of all, the plan is -- does not include any -- beyond, of course, the MASMOVIL reconsolidation in the group, but that's well understood. Any consolidation is something -- and if we talk about France, to be specific, in any case, the discussion we would have in the context of convincing the authorities to a low for transaction would be based, first and foremost, on synergies that would be created from the synergy from the transaction that are not included in the plan.

So in the end, the outcome would be that we would have to make a decision as a company to move forward or not in a transaction where we know the transaction creates synergies and as part of the social contract, I would say, with the countries to move to that consolidation we would turn back some of those synergies to investment in the network for cybersecurity, I mean, we can be creative. So it's not something that we don't foresee would change our guidance. because it's too early to comment. And in any case, it would be deal by deal specific.

So we'll take our next question from Eric, row #2.

Eric Ravary, CIC CIB. 3 quick questions, if I may. First one is on the savings in France. So what is your forecast of number of employees in front in '28 compared with today? Second question is the could you remind us the cost of maintenance of the copper network in France in 2025. Next question is on your guidance for free cash flow all in. Could we have a comparable basis in '25, so it was EUR 2.8 billion excluding Spain, of year, including Spain on a comparable basis. So after the setup of the fiberco.

So on the efficiency plan and your question around the number of employees we would have First of all, we don't forecast the number of employees. What we do is to make sure we forecast what are the skills we need. And the agreement we signed with employee representatives early in 2025 was exactly that. We looked at I mean, end of '24, the 3 years journey, and we highlighted -- what are the type of jobs that as a company we will need less, what are the type of job that we will need more. And as part of the agreement, we have this early retirement program, which is voluntary -- so it's difficult to anticipate.

Now we have a track record and we make estimates on statistically, I mean, who are volunteers for this plan. But again, we have no commitment. So we are very committed on the efficiency based on the track record regarding early retirement adoption, a key element of the, I will say, the ability to drive this plan with a return financially is, of course, to automate and to limit the replacement. But as part of our plan, we also plan to hire cyber experts, AI, data and on talent because we need to make sure we prepare for the future.

So really, -- we look at, of course, we manage the cost, but we're not counting employees as we plan for the future. We're really looking at the skills that are critical to execute the plan. On the cost of maintenance of copper, I don't know if we...

We are not precise that much, I mean, but as I say, around about savings that we see on Jerome your control for the next 3 years is around EUR 100 million. And post that, as you say, it would be a marginal cost moving forward.

Yes. It decreases quite a lot along the past plan already.

It is already. Cash flow, Olin?

Yes. On your third question, so the EUR 2.8 billion for '25 is around about the good comparable basis, the -- the OCF for MASORANGE close to breakeven in 2025 round about.

Okay. So we'll take our next question, row #3.

Jeremy Benatar from New Street Research. Just a question on Spain. I think you said that your guidance assumes a Spanish market remains competitive. But one of your competitors has recently said that they're rolling fiber at less than EUR 50 per home passed. And they're materially increasing their footprint at the moment. So do you see a risk to that of them driving retail prices down in fiber and how that might impact your guidance there?

Thank you very much. Look, we are living in a very competitive market in Spain with a lot of players, convergent players. We have around 8 collection players with more than EUR 100 million of revenues. And we have ultra low-cost players that are very aggressive now, but they have been very aggressive for years. So they are addressing a segment that in terms of revenue, it's probably not higher than 10% to 15%. TG, for instance, is the main player in this field. has probably overall revenue market share of not more than 5% in the country. We are 8, 9x bigger than TG currently.

So how do we plan to generate value, focus on quality of service, on premium services. So overall, we prioritize value over volume, very simple. How do we create an equation for our clients that is comparable, also attractive on economic terms. Very simple. We offer bundles, and we offer value through adjacencies. For instance, we have a consumer finance unit that enables financing of devices of up to 48 months at 0 interest. If you calculate a premium handset valued at EUR 1,500 the value of getting free financing is incredible. So we are matching with adjacencies, the benefits of ultra low cost, just on basic connectivity.

I think it's much smarter to do that than reducing prices on core connectivity. By the way, we think we have to position core connectivity much higher at a much higher level. And this has some, let's say, positive side effects. We are #1 retailer in Spain in a lot of categories of, let's say, consumer electronics. For instance, last year, we have sold more than 5 million devices growing above 20% year-on-year. And we will continue to grow that because it creates loyalty.

If you are -- if you have a client that has various devices with us, consumer finance, -- the property that he will leave or she will leave is very much reduced. So our strategy is loyalty, valuations through adjacencies. And as you have seen, it has paid off. We have been in a market where we compete with convergent offers at EUR 11 without VAT, with our FMC, ARPU of EUR 52, and we have been able to maintain it stable. So I believe that are very satisfactory results, and we will continue like that.

Do we have more questions in the room? Yes, Akhil.

Maybe if I can ask a follow-up. It's just on your EPS guidance and just reconciling that to cash flow. If we take the 10% CAGR you're guiding to on EPS, it implies, I think, roughly EUR 3 billion of net income in 2028. Whereas if I take the free cash flow all in your at 4.5%, if I take out minorities, maybe it's 4-ish. Could you just maybe help us understand that bridge. Obviously, in the long term, you'd expect maybe some normalization. But just to better understand why is there such a big gap between your adjusted earnings and net free cash flow.

Laurent, this is for you.

Yes. So very, very nice question. So of course, in the net income, there is plenty of noncash item as well. So the key difference is coming from the fact that there is still a in our net income, which is weighting on our net income, which are noncash. And against that, we are reducing our CapEx from 17%, 16%, down to 14%. And this is what is impacting the cash -- that would be the first key block of difference between the 2 parameters.

And I want to just ask -- sorry, I guess it's very hard for us to anticipate the trends in depreciation over time. Do you have some thoughts around when that might start to normalize when that heavier depreciation starts to better mirror of your CapEx?

Well, it's -- I mean, it all depends the is -- I mean, the fiber by definition of fiber CapEx, and we have been investing, I remind EUR 13 billion of fiber in France. This is meant to be for next 40 years, the depreciation will be very long, very flat. When it comes to network equipment, the lifetime is 5 to 7 years. So this will be a kind of much shorter depreciation. So I don't expect to have a massive ramp down of that. It will be more long-term in terms of ramp down than short to midterm.

A sale-related question actually. But your all-in free cash flow guidance doesn't include minority dividend payments. I think you indicated that would be growing. I assume that growth is part of the reason for the gap between the 10% EPS and 12% free cash flow. So firstly, could you give us a bit of a steer on how much the minority dividend leakage is assumed to be growing by over the guidance period? And then related to that, given this very strong growth you're seeing in Africa, Middle East and the free cash flow generation, is there an argument for increasing your stakes there were fully consolidating the businesses. I remember speaking about MASORANGE previously, you said if we like these assets. We want to own them fully. Why is that different in Africa versus Europe?

That's an important question. And in Middle East and Africa, as we said, we have a portfolio -- a diversified portfolio of countries and every country has a different setup. In some of those countries, we own 100%. That's the case of Egypt. In other countries, we have minority shareholders. Sometimes we are listed also. Those minority shareholders, they are local the government is a shareholder. And this is, for us, very important. And because that sends the message of value being created locally. And in the current environment, as we said, the strength of our multi-local model is very important to navigate the geopolitics. So keeping this minority interest is very important for sustainable value creation in those countries. So we don't plan to change this drastically.

We may have, and we have the opportunity in some countries to move slightly -- we've done it in Ivory Coast a few years back, actually 3 years ago, where the government owned 20% that decided to go public. So that type of transaction happened. But generally speaking, we plan to keep the same level of minority interest. And then when it comes to the cash and EPS.

Yes. So when it comes to the cash, the majority interest that we paid in 2025 is around EUR 430 million, and we are expecting this to develop, of course, with the business around mid-single digits. That's the kind of expectation we have on this perspective.

Okay. Maybe we can take a few more questions, Ondrej, row #4.

Maybe a bit of a conceptual question. But how important is it for you to be the biggest player in France because, obviously, this is part of your slides as part of kind of the DNA of the company. And the reason I'm asking really is related to our debate yesterday around potential issues from a regulatory perspective around consolidation, jurisdiction, et cetera? Because clearly, there's a very obvious way to kind of bypass this by making this a very French deal. So I'm just wondering, is there a world in which somehow if there are issues at the EC level, et cetera, the deal is repackaged restructured and it becomes French only, in which case, however, you would no longer be the biggest player in the country. So how important is that for you?

So first of all, we're #1 in France, and that's very important for us to stay #1 in France because there is no magic in our industry. We have a business of fixed cost. So if you're #1, you create more value than if you're #2 and #3. And we see that across the board with all our countries. So that's why we want to be a #1 player. It's not just we want to claim number one, it's because that really creates more value.

Now when it comes to the potential transaction in France, I mean, there is 1 player for sale. So all type of combinations are possible. And today, there is an offer on the table that's a consortium offer between the 3 of us. Now nothing guarantees that indeed this transaction will go to an end and maybe there will be other scenarios. Now if you look at the 3 players in France and if you just focus on antitrust authorities, we are not the only international player in France. So take a player like Iliad, they are under for whatever they do in France would be -- I mean, looked at from Brussels. So it's not just a discussion of Orange. So we will see. But we really don't take that into account. We know there's going to be antitrust authorities reviewing any type of transaction. Our focus is orange trajectory. Of course, we are #1. We want to stay #1 organic and, of course, taking opportunities as they appear to create synergies and to continue to have a sustainable business in France.

So we'll take our last question from Mathieu.

Just a quick one. The dividend of [ EUR 0.85 million ] you said that's a floor. And should we understand that to floor, including any potential deal in France? That's the first question. And then maybe a point of clarification on the -- again, the France EBITDA guidance. On your slide, you have copper resell, EUR 0.2 billion increase between [ '28 and '25 ] that EUR 0.2 billion. Should I understand it that's the net of the copper we sell and the cost of decommissioning or it's completely different.

So on the dividend, as we said, it's a floor for 2028. We were very clear that as part of our cash allocation we really want to focus on deleverage from the impact of the Spanish transaction so that we could do a transaction in France based on debt and that's why a big part of the increase of cash creation in the next few years will go to deleverage. So that's very important for us.

So then on the dividend, we're not commenting beyond 2028. So it's too early to comment on if and when there would be a France transaction, what would be the impact. But again, this transaction, our objective is to do it debt based and not to impact, I would say, shareholder allocation. On the copper...

So on the copper, just to be precise, the EUR 200 million is an increase of the revenue coming from the copper resale between EUR 125 million to EUR 128 million. And as we said, the depreciation of the discounting assets are below EBITDA.

Very, very last question from Nick.

Sorry, I have been any questions on French consolidation. So maybe I could ask 1 just on the timing. It's timing getting difficult now for French consolidation. It's taken a long time to get to here. That's 4 or 5 months. We've always been told it's best to do it pre-French presidential election. So how difficult is this getting now? And how quickly do you have to move, do you think? And what are the actual barriers in terms of timing, please?

So first, I mean, you say it's taking time, but if you look at the challenge of putting together an offer between 3 competitors and then the challenge of going through due diligence for such a complex transaction I don't think we want to rush it and because we're talking about a lot of money. So yes, there is value creation at stake, but it's a lot of money we're talking about. So that's why we take the necessary type.

Now when it comes to the execution, if we would come to an agreement. Part of it does not depend on us because it's the antitrust process. And we don't know when that would conclude. And I'm not going to I mean, instruct the antitrust authorities, knowing that we haven't started any process. So it's easy for their side to say, look, we don't know. And so we don't -- of course, as long as the deal creates value, the deal creates long-term value for France, the objective would be to convince elected politicians, I mean, whether or not it's before or after they would have their word. But it starts first and foremost by agreeing between the different players.

Thank you. So this concludes our Q&A session. I will now hand it back to Christel for any concluding remarks.

Yes. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Costa. Thank you all for your participation, whether you were online or in the room, as you understood, we are very enthusiastic and committed to the execution of our plan, and we look forward to now going real life on everything we discussed, and I'm sure we will have discussion with all our quarterly.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your patience, and welcome to Orange's Full Year 2025 Results Conference. For your information, this conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The call today will be hosted by Christel Heydemann, CEO; and Laurent Martinez, CFO, with other members of Orange's Executive Committee for the Q&A session that will start after the presentation. Thank you, and let me hand over the floor to Christel Heydemann.

Good evening, and thank you for joining our 2025 results presentation. These 2025 results successfully conclude our 3-year Lead the Future plan, which has been marked by consistent execution and focus on value creation. All our key objectives have been met or overachieved. We also finished the year with sustained strategic activity. In Spain, we signed a binding agreement with Lorca to acquire full ownership of MASORANGE by acquiring the remaining 50% stake in the joint venture for a price of EUR 4.25 billion. With this operation, Spain will become our second largest market in Europe, and we will be able, upon closing, to capture 100% of MASORANGE value creation.

PremiumFiber, the co-owned FiberCo with Vodafone and GIC, began operations in Q4. With over 12 million premises and nearly 5 million connected customers. This is the biggest FibreCo in Europe in terms of customers.

In France, we submitted in October, together with Bouygues Telecom and Free Group Iliad, a joint nonbinding offer to acquire a large part of Altice activities in France. In a challenging competitive environment, this deal would allow us to strengthen investments in France while maintaining a competitive ecosystem for the benefit of consumers. Due diligence works have been initiated in early January 2026. There is no certainty that this process will result in an agreement.

Back to our 2025 results, we are really pleased to report a robust commercial performance in France, Europe and Africa, Middle East, fueling strong results fully in line with our guidance. After 2 consecutive guidance upgrades this year, full year EBITDAaL grew by 3.8% with a solid 0.9 point margin rate improvement. Organic cash flow reached EUR 3.7 billion, representing more than 8% growth year-on-year, overachieving our Lead the Future guidance.

Let's now review our strong full year and Q4 results. On the top line, the group delivered EUR 40.4 billion in revenues, representing a 0.9% increase, driven by growth in retail and MEA. EBITDAaL performance is up plus 3.8% for the full year. France grew at an accelerated pace. Europe's growth remained solid and Africa, Middle East continues to perform strongly in the double-digit territory. Finally, Orange Business further improved its EBITDAaL trend. We maintained discipline on eCapEx with eCapEx to sales at around 15%, in line with our target.

Organic cash flow reached EUR 3.7 billion, rising by more than 8% and well in line with our annual goal of at least EUR 3.6 billion.

Our free cash flow all-in stands at EUR 2.8 billion, Our balance sheet remains robust with a net debt-to-EBITDAaL ratio of 1.8x. We also fully achieved our 2025 greenhouse gas emissions target on all scopes.

Lead the Future has built a strong, sustainable momentum across the company, uniquely positioning Orange on its markets. With a powerful brand, cutting-edge networks and our global teams, we are now serving 340 million customers worldwide. We are stronger in our core business, more efficient in our operations and financially healthier. We have been very active in in-market consolidation across Europe, notably through the successful creation of MASORANGE, now the leading operator in Spain. We are about to get full ownership of this operation, delivering synergies at full speed. I continue to advocate Europe to review its regulatory framework as we believe a strong digital and telecom ecosystem is essential for enhancing competitiveness in the region.

Over the past 3 years, we have strengthened our leadership in NPS across 16 countries and delivered solid retail performance with an outstanding double-digit growth in Africa, Middle East and leadership of Orange Cyberdefense. All of this has been achieved by maintaining a solid balance sheet while owning our infrastructures, which is a key differentiator.

FTTH deployment is almost done in Europe, and we now have approximately 100 million FTTH connectable homes. Our primary focus over the period has been execution. We streamlined our portfolio with the exit of Orange Bank in Europe, the sale of OCS and Orange Studio in 2024 and the continued transformation of Orange Business. Additionally, we accelerated efficiency through a major workforce planning agreement in France, simplified group processes and maintained a relentless focus on cost optimization and operational efficiency.

Financially, free cash flow all-in has grown significantly by 74% over 3 years, translating into an additional EUR 1.2 billion in cash. The dividend increased by 7% over the last 3 years, while total shareholder return surged by 82% in 3 years. We are very proud of these achievements. We have now very solid foundations for our next strategic plan, which we will present to you tomorrow.

Looking at our sustainable performance, we all made significant achievements over the last 3 years, and we exceeded our 2025 targets. Greenhouse gas emissions are down 49% on Scope 1 and 2 compared to 2015. And Scope 3 is down 16% compared to 2018. Those results reflect all the efforts and levers activated, as for instance, our partners to net zero carbon program for which we signed 7 partnerships.

We are committed to our mission to reduce the digital divide and have increased 4G population coverage in MEA to 80%. Regarding digital inclusion, more than 3 million people benefited from free digital training since 2022. Finally, as part of our trust development strategy, we continue to launch new offers for youth protection and B2C cybersecurity. And in December, we appointed a Chief Trust Officer, Guillaume Poupard, to accelerate this strategy. I will now hand over to Laurent for the financial review on Slide 8.

Thank you, Christel, and good evening, everyone. Let's start on revenues, up 0.9% in 2025 at EUR 40 billion, fueled by robust service growth of 2%, which offset the expected wholesale decline. From a segment perspective, revenue growth is driven by Africa and Middle East, outstanding double-digit growth, and Europe at plus 2%. In France, retail ex PSTN is up 0.6% as expected, and was offset by anticipated decline in wholesale.

Orange Business is still impacted by portfolio pruning and by the difficult IT market and French macro environment.

On efficiency, we have delivered strong results and achieved our 3 years net saving target of EUR 600 million. This success has been driven by strong operational efficiency leading to a solid improvement in the EBITDAaL margin of close to 1 point in 2025. Regarding our procurement initiative, we are well on track to meet our midterm target of EUR 700 million, and we exceeded EUR 300 million of value created, thanks to AI in 2025. This sets the stage for the next phase of efficiency, which we will present tomorrow at our Capital Market Day.

Moving to EBITDAaL, growth reached 3.8% for this year, strong result, which is driven by outstanding double-digit performance from Africa and Middle East, a continued solid growth in Europe and a positive EBITDAaL momentum in France.

Finally, Orange Business continued its EBITDAaL improvement trend despite current macroeconomic headwinds.

Turning to net income. '25 net income is driven by EBITDAaL step-up, offset by tax and by 3 main exceptional items: the booking of a provision related to the Senior Part-Time for EUR 1.2 billion net of tax, the impairment of Orange Business activities for around EUR 330 million, driven by market evolution, and the start of depreciation of the copper dismantling asset booked in 2025 for around EUR 370 million. Related to copper in France, 2025 marked the beginning of the [ industrial ] phase of copper shutdown, in line with the decommission plan announced in 2022. As part of this process, we have recognized, as per IFRS standard, a provision of EUR 1.7 billion in '25, representing the best estimate of the dismantling cost. This provision will be reversed as real cost occur.

In symmetry to this provision, a dismantling asset of EUR 1.7 billion has been recorded and will be amortized on a roughly linear basis until 2030. In parallel, to ease the analysis of our underlying performance, we introduced new indicators, including -- excluding specific elements, the adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share. Altogether, the adjusted net income amounts to EUR 3.1 billion in '25, considering around EUR 1.95 billion of adjustment mainly driven by the 3 exceptional items of '25 that I just described.

Let's move to CapEx. We maintained our disciplined policy with 15% eCapEx to sales ratio. We pursued our investment in Africa and Middle East to support our strong revenue and decrease CapEx in all segments. Excluding Africa and Middle East, our group eCapEx decreased by more than 3% year-over-year.

On organic cash flow, the organic cash flow is up EUR 280 million, reaching EUR 3.7 billion, well in line with our guidance of at least EUR 3.6 billion. This strong growth is mainly driven by EBITDAaL increase. Free cash flow all-in reached EUR 2.8 billion, with a slight decline year-on-year due to the expected phasing telco license payment between '24 and '25.

Net debt is stable and stands at 1.8x EBITDAaL, in line with our guidance of around 2x. We are very proud to have successfully issued 2 Jumbo bonds at the end of '25 and early '26, amounting to EUR 5 billion and $6 billion, both of them massively oversubscribed. This achievement secures the upcoming refinancing of MASORANGE debt and demonstrate the strength and attractiveness of our group on the debt market.

Moving to the business review and starting with France. The competitive environment remains generally stable with sustained competition on the low end. In this context, we are laser-focused on our efficient commercial strategy grounded in segmentation, strong customer loyalty and value. This approach has driven robust commercial performance this year. This quarter, we maintained positive momentum with 134,000 mobile net adds, 315,000 on fiber and record since the last quarter's 2022 and 25,000 on convergence. This performance is fueled by positive result on both Orange and Sosh brands and effective churn management with mobile churn reducing by more than 2 points year-on-year. Convergent ARPU at close to EUR 79 continue to grow and is up 1.2% year-on-year in Q4, while mobile and fixed broadband ARPU declined year-on-year, reflecting the mix effect and our strategy to attract customers in all segments and then upsell and cross-sell.

Overall, we continue to demonstrate our leadership and innovation in France. We are, once again, recognized by Arcep as the best customer service and for the 15 consecutive time as the best mobile network. We also have launched an innovative direct-to-device satellite SMS offering and successfully tested next-generation GPON fiber technology.

Moving to the financials. Our efficient commercial strategy led to a 0.6% growth in retail ex PSTN revenues in '25 and 0.5% in Q4, as expected, outperforming all the players of the market in a challenging environment. As anticipated, revenues remain impacted by the structural decline in wholesale. In Q4, this decline was offset by slightly more cofinancing received this quarter.

2025 also marks the beginning of the technical closure of copper with more than 200,000 premises completion. The robust improvement in EBITDAaL trend in '25 and operating cash flow growth is driven by rigorous cost management with a significant 4% OpEx reduction over the year. This translates into a 1.1 point EBITDAaL margin improvement and an increase of close to 3% of EBITDAaL minus CapEx.

Turning to Africa and Middle East, which continues to deliver a very strong performance, demonstrating once again our positive momentum. Revenues are up double digits for the 11th consecutive quarters, driven by our 4 key drivers. Thanks to revenue growth and strict cost control, we delivered double-digit EBITDAaL growth in 2025 for the sixth consecutive year, raising the bar of EBITDAaL margin to above 39%, up by 0.6 points.

EBITDAaL minus CapEx is up at 17% on the FX comparable basis and 14% on a historical basis, leading to a strong cash generation in [ euro ], our top priority for MEA.

Moving on to Europe. Revenues are back to growth, increasing by more than 2% in '25, sustained by services and IT&IS, thanks notably to large deals in Poland and Romania. Services remain strong, fueled by effective volume value strategy, an increase of customer base by around 700,000 customers in 2025. Over the quarter, net adds remain robust, with mobile net adds above 100,000. Convergence revenues are up by 6% over the quarters with net add at 32,000 and growing ARPU, notably in Poland. EBITDAaL reached EUR 2 billion, up 3.2% in 2025, and EBITDAaL minus eCapEx is up by more than 12%.

Moving to Orange Business. Revenues are still impacted by last year's portfolio pruning and by the French macroeconomic environment. While the French market remains difficult, international segment of the business is showing clear signs of improvement as reflected by a win ratio of close to 50%. Orange Cyberdefense continued to grow sustainably at 7% in 2025. From a value proposition perspective, our new secure connectivity offer is a significant success with over EUR 240 million in orders this year and nearly 60% customer growth in second half of 2025.

With this new modular platform, our clients now have the opportunity to use connectivity as a service, offering self-service, dynamic pricing and AI-driven automation. Together with Orange Cyberdefense, we are driving growth and profitability with our combined offers, leveraging both telco and cyber strengths. We are stepping up as well on our new flagship products such as our trusted AI platform, Live Intelligence. In that context, the EBITDAaL trend at minus 6% year-on-year is improving for the third consecutive year, while not fully at our initial 2025 target.

Let's turn to Spain. On a stand-alone basis, MASORANGE fully achieved its 2025 ambition. In particular, the company delivered above the targeted EUR 300 million in cumulative synergies at the end of the year. From a commercial standpoint, we achieved strong net adds in the mobile segment and maintained stable volume in fixed broadband. Revenues are up by 0.7% in the fourth quarter, top line benefiting from strong growth in both B2B and our new business initiative, offsetting the challenging telco retail market.

adjusted EBITDA minus recurring net CapEx is up 10%, in line with our 2025 outlook.

Finally, proceeds from the FiberCo transaction resulted in a significant deleverage with a net debt to adjusted EBITDA now at 3.6x from 4.5x at the end of 2024.

Moving to a word on PremiumFiber. We are very pleased to have successfully completed this NetCo transaction closing at the end of the year, maximizing the value of the largest fiber network in Spain. Going forward, the impact of the rental fees to access fiber premium network will be broadly cash neutral, thanks to the reduction in interest costs driven by the strong deleveraging. With this, I hand over back the floor to Christel for the conclusion.

Thank you, Laurent. We are proud of these strong 2025 results and the achievements over the past 3 years. They provide a solid foundation for our next plan, which will be presented tomorrow. Laurent, Jerome, Yasser, Meini and I are now ready for your questions. Please note that we will only answer questions related to full year '25 results. All forward-looking questions will be addressed tomorrow.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Akhil Dattani from JPMorgan.

Christel, firstly, one for you, if I can. You mentioned in your opening remarks that you started due diligence on SFR with the consortium in January. You may have seen the press reports that have come out in the last few weeks suggesting that due diligence has been closed and that there's a chance of potentially quite a fast deal close. Now I'm sure you weren't able to comment too specifically, but can you sort of give us a bit of color on exactly what's been going on? And if, high level, there is anything within that, that is -- you can help us with to better understand what's going on?

And then the second one was on MASORANGE. I saw helpfully on Slide 32, you've given us pro forma financials for the asset. I just wanted to better understand a little bit what you've given us? And what I'm trying to understand is, firstly, the EBITDA impact from PremiumFiber EUR 350 million is a bit higher than I thought. If you could maybe just help us understand what's in that just so we understand if that's a reasonable starting point for going forward? And I was always -- also interested to see that there's no CapEx that moves to PremiumFiber, so maybe you can help us understand why that is?

Thanks, Akhil. So on SFR, as we communicated a few weeks back, we have started due diligence work early January. And to be fair, those discussions and due diligence and exchanges are still continuing. So I was not the source of the press report that you saw, but clearly, the legal and financial terms of the transaction have not yet been agreed upon, and we are still discussing and working on due diligence. So nothing has been concluded. And as we said, it's still too early to say whether or not we will be able to reach an agreement.

On the MASORANGE pro forma number, Laurent?

Yes. Akhil, so EUR 350 million is a good proxy in terms of indeed lease costs moving forward. And of course, there will be a CPI inflation on top of it over time, obviously. So that's a good benchmark. And in terms of CapEx, Meini, maybe you can say a word, but there is very few CapEx attached to the impact of this.

So this year is basically no CapEx assigned to PremiumFiber. And in general, the CapEx intensity for MASORANGE is very low.

Our next question is from Stephane Beyazian from ODDO.

Can I ask you if you can comment on the competitive environment in France. We've seen a little bit more pressure on your non-convergent ARPUs in Q4 and in the past few days, or perhaps today, we've seen also one offer a bit more aggressive from one of your competitor in the fixed market. So I was just curious if there's anything you could comment overall on the competitive environment, especially for perhaps the first quarter, perhaps the market is a bit more softer than in the past.

And my second question is regarding to capital expenditures. It's interesting to see that it was down in the second half of 2025 in Europe at business services and in carrier services. Without obviously telling too much on what you will be saying tomorrow, but I was just curious if there was anything to mention specifically for the second half? Or you believe that this is part of the savings that you're doing and potentially that could continue in the future?

Thank you, Stephane. So on the French market, and I will start and then Jerome can comment further. But generally speaking, as we said, the low end of the market, be it broadband or mobile, remains competitive. We have not seen an increase. Actually Q1 is, as usual, a bit less intense in terms of promotion than the Q4 and the end of year season. But we have not seen, I would say, a drastic change from the overall environment, which remains competitive on the low end. And when it comes to our ARPU's evolution, as we've said, there is nothing that wasn't planned. And this is the evolution of the mix, and because we play on the volume and value, and we acquire customer, including low-end price customers, but then our strategy is to upsell them. Mechanically, we are feeding the growth also through convergence, and you see the continued growth of our convergent ARPU, but we see a small impact on the ARPU evolution in mobile only and broadband only.

Convergent remains the bedrock of our growth strategy, and that's 31% of our total revenue and very important. Jerome, if you want to...

Thank you, Christel. I think you said it all. It's an overall stable market, still quite aggressive on the low end, but all stable on the high end, particularly on fixed broadband. Of course, we adapt to shield our market share. But as you saw, we had remarkable performance on sales, on commercial performance during the quarter. And about the ARPU, I think it's worth saying that for fixed broadband, it's stable quarter-over-quarter. So we mentioned last quarter the decrease year-over-year, but on a quarter-over-quarter basis, Q4 versus Q3, we remain stable. And as Laurent mentioned, we use of course entry-level pricing for fixed broadband and mobile to attract customers. And then we upsell them on higher packages and particularly on convergence, and this is why you see more value uplift on convergence and an increase in the convergence ARPU.

On the question CapEx, Laurent, if you want to -- H2 CapEx trend?

Yes. So of course, we continue to optimize our CapEx evolution, and you spotted the one in Europe. So we continue to optimize this. Of course, we'll come back to you with more depth on that tomorrow in terms of forward-looking statements. But you see, of course, in H2, the first perspective of our CapEx optimization.

And specifically at Orange Business Services, was there a decision in order to protect the free cash flow generation, strategic decision to stop investing, I mean I exaggerate, obviously, but a strategic decision there?

No, no, no strategic decision, Stephane. This is more a phasing of our CapEx projects. Some of them are customer related. So it's purely phasing.

Our next question is from Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank.

I've got 2 questions, please. And perhaps just sticking with the French KPIs. I guess for the last 12 months, we've been talking about slowing overall market volumes, yet this quarter, as we saw, I think, in Q1, Q2, you had taken market share. And in particular, the record fiber ads, I think, since the end of Q4 '22. So can you tell us what's happening there, particularly on the fiber side given the mature end market? Has there been a change in strategy? What is driving the customers to kind of take fiber now versus 12 months ago?

And secondly, thank you for providing the net income bridge on Slide 11. One question just around the copper decommissioning component. Should we expect that to continue for the next few years? And tied to that, when should we start seeing the benefits on the OpEx level from those lower costs from switch off the copper network?

Thank you, Roshan. On the French KPIs, I think Jerome can provide you more details, but that's really long-term work that we've done on our quality of operation, on the shortening the timing between a customer signs up for broadband and then can be can be connected, and a lot of work focusing as well on, of course, the copper decommissioning that's also feeding broadband growth. But I'm sure, Jerome, you have a lot more details on that.

Yes, maybe just a thing that our sales machine is working particularly well as you underlined and with a very strong adds momentum during Q4 in all segments, convergence, fixed broadband with very strong performance on fiber and mobile as well. Mobile net adds are comparable to Q3. Of course, we are protecting value while making sure that we are attracting new customers and having a strong market share on gross adds. And as Christel said, this is the result of, let's say, long-term work on our commercial channel, sales channels, [indiscernible] shops, but as well digital and all channels. And this is the result as well of, I think, very positive image in the market of Orange as the best operator in terms of quality of service recognized by Arcep as mentioned by Laurent. And we know that those days customers are looking for price, but they are looking as well for quality. And this is a clear differentiation for us, which translates into the best NPS in the market as well as different awards and recognition from the regulator.

Thank you, Jerome. On copper decommissioning, of course, I mean, this program was launched a few years back and it's going to last until 2030. So for all forward-looking OpEx reduction and efficiency impact, of course, we will discuss it tomorrow. But on the closing of 2025 and the provision, Laurent?

Yes. So Roshan, just to clarify, so we have booked EUR 1.7 billion into our assets, which will be depreciated over time up to 2030, so around EUR 360 million in '25, and you should expect something roughly linear until end of 2030, which will be impacting our net income.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Josh Mills, BNP Paribas.

Two from my side. So Firstly, on the French service revenues ex PSTN, we saw a bit of an improvement in Q4 versus Q3. I just wanted to check, are there any one-offs there regarding current investment, fiber payments, anything else we should be aware of? Because given the commentary last quarter on the commercial trends and the ARPU declines, we're seeing this quarter, it seems to be surprising that service revenues have picked up in the fourth quarter?

And then secondly, perhaps a question for Meini on the MASORANGE business. So it looks from my tracker at least, like we saw a bit of a deterioration in retail service revenues this quarter and EBITDA on a year-on-year basis is down 17%. Now I know EBITDA in MASORANGE has been very volatile over the year, but are there any drivers within that minus 17% year-on-year quarterly EBITDA decline? And in particular, does that include the 1 month of fiber copayments, which I think you've highlighted in the slides as well? So France and Spain would be my questions.

Thank you, Josh. So on the retail French services performance in Q4, we continued to have a positive growth this trimester, of course, excluding PSTN, and this is driven by good volumes and our convergent ARPU growth and our efficient commercial strategy. Back to your question, there is no one-off explaining this performance. And as you know, we were guiding when we had our H1 and Q3 results, we were saying that the environment would be flat to small positive for retail services revenue, and that's what we see for the full H2. So very consistent and in the end, it's the outcome of our efficient commercial strategy. On MASORANGE, Meini?

Yes. Thank you, Joshua. First of all, overall, the big picture, we are growing around 3% in revenues and around 10% in operating cash flow. So it's a very positive result for us. Regarding Q4, we don't see a negative trend. We see some, let's say, special seasonality effects, both in revenues as well as in EBITDA.

In terms of revenues, we have seasonality in Enterprise Solutions and in wholesale, and wholesale, by the way, low-margin business because it's international carrier services related. In Retail Services, as you can see, we have a stable FMC ARPU, which is positive in a very challenging environment. However, we have some negative effects on mobile and fixed-only ARPU. However, we have 84% of our client base in convergency, so it only affects a minor part of our client base.

In terms of EBITDA, again, we compare to a very strong Q4 '24. And that was particularly strong because of some seasonality effects because of accounting effects. In Q4, we reversed an excess provision recorded in previous quarters related to content costs. We have been especially prudent regarding the football soccer rights, which are quite expensive in Spain. And we have done the reversal of this provision in Q4 last year. And then very important, we are doing and reinvest -- we are doing an incremental investment in our growth areas in B2B and the new businesses where we have short term some negative effects, but we believe mid- and long term, it's the right thing to do.

Our last question this evening comes from Ondrej Cabejsek from UBS.

Two questions for me, please. Just one following up on the question around M&A. My question, Christel, is, basically, we've seen a lot of conflicting messaging from various stakeholders. I believe, for example, the French government seems to be supportive in the situation, the European Council seems to be support -- in support of M&A, even the head of the commission seems to be in support of M&A, but then we've seen other very important stakeholders such as the DG Comp or the mission responsible for consolidation put out less encouraging messages. So I guess what is your view of the situation more broadly? That's question Number 1.

And the question Number 2 is basically on the Spanish situation where once the deal is closed, as you're saying, sometime around 2Q, how fast do you think you will be able to refinance the debt back to like an investment grade and thus add to the free cash flow potential of this unit?

Thank you, Ondrej. On the M&A and conflicting or sometime different messages from different stakeholders, let's be, I mean, very clear. First of all, I mean, we've been advocating for how important that is to just realize in Europe that we cannot continue with so many fragmented markets and so much competition when the rest of the world is actually acting differently. It's not just me talking. You've seen the Mario Draghi Report, the Enrico Letta Report, And this is something where I think there is a clear awareness politically. And that's true from the Brussels, I would say, leaders, that's also true from country leaders. And if I step back to where we were when we were negotiating on the MASMOVIL-Orange merger, we had a strong support from the Spanish government. We also had support politically, I would say, from Brussels. Despite that, we had to go through a long and probably too long, but still concluded positively and got the approval from DG Competition.

So our take on this one is there is definitely awareness. We're hear supporting messages from political leaders. That being said, we will not wait, let's be clear, and that's why we are actively discussing in France. We've been driving consolidation as well in Belgium, in Romania. We are not waiting for, let's say, merger guidelines to be fully revisited. And we are of the opinion that concrete test cases will be the best way to prove our case that mergers, national consolidation creates efficiency and efficiency is the best way to continue to invest and it's the best way to secure, in the long run, low prices for consumers. So that's something that we are very much convinced about, and we see that based on facts after the merger of MASMOVIL and Orange in Spain.

So I think we are confident, but again, you cannot expect DG competition, and I would say experts who have been working one way to change from one day to another. So it's based -- it has to be based on concrete facts. And that's our opinion.

On the MASORANGE strategy, I would say, on the refinancing, Laurent?

Yes. Ondrej, so to make it simple, just to have the high-level picture, we have EUR 9.4 billion of debt at MASORANGE, plus around EUR 4.2 billion of the price to Lorca. So we are talking about around EUR 13 billion. But as I explained, we have issued in advance 2 Jumbo bonds for EUR 10 billion end of '25, early '26. So you see a very large majority of this refinancing is feasible at closing, and we'll be doing that at closing. We have as well a strong liquidity on our side to get to where we want to be overall. Just to take a note that this refinancing will yield interest savings for MASORANGE. And this will offset nicely the lease that we discussed in your question, the question #1, for the PremiumFiber. So that will be a good synergies that we'll be implementing post closing of MASORANGE.

In other words -- can I just follow-up that. In other words, you see no kind of obstacle to the full ERU 13 billion roughly being refinanced almost immediately because you've secured some financing already, but the rest, you think, will not be a problem in terms of any -- okay.

Yes. We have EUR 10 billion out of EUR 13 billion plus extra liquidity we have. And then we will have the flexibility until closing either to keep a bit of -- a small bit of the current MASORANGE financing or basically to have other solutions. But globally, the financing is secured and completed.

That concludes the Q&A with financial analysts. Journalists, as a reminder, please stay connected. Your session will start shortly. I will now hand it back over to Christel Heydemann for any concluding remarks.

Thank you. We are pleased with our full year results, strong full year results and lead the future achievements, which position us very well to meet upcoming challenges and seize new opportunities in our markets. Thank you, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow at 9 a.m. for our Capital Markets Day.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Orange's Q3 2025 Results Conference. For your information, this conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The call today will be hosted by Christel Heydemann, CEO; and Laurent Martinez, CFO, with other members of Orange's Executive Committee for the Q&A session that will start after the presentation.

Thank you, and let me hand over the floor to Christel Heydemann.

Good morning, and thank you for joining our Q3 results presentation. Before getting into our Q3 results, I would like to mention that last week, we submitted together with Bouygues Telecom and Free-Group Iliad, a joint nonbinding offer to acquire a large part of Altice activities in France. In a challenging competitive environment, this deal would allow us to strengthen investments in France while maintaining a competitive ecosystem for the benefit of consumers.

This nonbinding offer amounts to EUR 17 billion, of which 27% for Orange. There is no certainty that we will reach an agreement, and we are willing to engage in a constructive dialogue with the Altice Group.

Back to our Q3 results. We remain fully focused on our business execution, and we are really pleased to report strong results driven by a robust commercial performance in France, Europe and the Middle East and Africa region. In France, in particular, we are proud to reaffirm our leadership in fiber with over 10 million customers and plus 1.1 million new customers in the last 12 months.

We have become the first operator in Europe to surpass this milestone in the domestic market, marking a major achievement in our state-of-the-art network commercialization. In Spain, MASORANGE has announced an agreement with Vodafone Spain and GIC to create the largest fiber company named PremiumFiber. With 12 million premises and 5 million customers, this FiberCo will provide considerable benefits for the Spanish market.

Our continued focus on cost efficiency is reflected in the EBITDAaL growth of 3.7% this quarter, along with a 0.7 point improvement in margin rate. These robust results enable us to once again upgrade our full year guidance with a full year EBITDAaL now expected to grow by at least 3.5%.

Let's review our strong Q3 results on Slide 5. Revenues increased by 0.8% in the third quarter, driven by robust retail performance of 2.6%, which offsets the expected decline in wholesale. From a segment perspective, revenue growth is led by Middle East and Africa, achieving double-digit growth for the 10th consecutive quarter and Europe back to growth, thanks to retail services and IT&IS.

In France, retail, excluding PSTN, grew 0.2% as expected and was offset by the anticipated decline in wholesale and equipment sales. EBITDAaL reached EUR 3.4 billion, growing by 3.7%, giving us confidence to upgrade our full year guidance to at least 3.5%. This growth is driven by our solid performance as well as our continuous efficiency initiatives fueled by advancements in procurement, AI and operational efficiency ambitions. In line with our eCapEx discipline, we maintained a CapEx to sales ratio of approximately 15%.

I will now hand over to Laurent for the business review, starting with France on Slide 7.

Thank you, Christel. Good morning, everyone. In France, in a market which is overall flattish in value, the competitive environment remained generally stable with sustained competition on the low end. In this context, we continue to uphold our efficient commercial strategy grounded in extensive and innovative segmentation, strong customer loyalty and value.

This strategy led to a robust commercial performance with 138,000 mobile net adds, best quarter since the fourth quarter 2022, 274,000 on fiber and 20,000 on convergence. This performance is driven by increased momentum on Orange brand and effective churn management with mobile churn improving by more than 2 points year-on-year.

Convergence ARPU continued to grow, increasing by 1.1% year-on-year in the third quarter, while mobile and fixed broadband ARPU slightly declined year-on-year, reflecting the mix effect related to the competitive landscape over the past year. Fixed broadband ARPU slightly improved on a quarter-to-quarter basis.

Moving to the financials. For France, our disciplined and efficient commercial strategy led to a 0.2% growth in retail ex PSTN revenues as expected. Revenue continues to be impacted by the structural anticipated decline in wholesale. Globally, we remain committed to cost optimization and confirm our objective of growing EBITDAaL in France in 2025 slightly more than in 2024.

Let's turn to Middle East and Africa, which continues to deliver a very strong performance, demonstrating once again our positive momentum. Revenues are up double digit for the 10th consecutive quarter, driven by our 4 key drivers. Looking forward on the back of this performance, we are fully confident in our ability to achieve double-digit EBITDAaL growth in 2025.

Let's turn to Europe. Revenues are back to growth in Europe this quarter at 4.7%, driven by services growing at 1.4%, thanks to a balanced volume value strategy and an exceptional IT&IS quarters, notably in Poland. Net adds remains very robust in both mobile and fixed broadband with mobile customer base reaching 22 million.

Convergence revenue showed once again a strong performance, increasing by close to 6%. Looking ahead, we do confirm as well our 2025 outlook with a low single-digit EBITDAaL growth.

Moving to Orange business. Revenues are impacted by last year's portfolio pruning by the difficult IT market and by the French macro environment. In that context, Orange Cyber Defense growth remains solid at over 6% in the first 9 months. In parallel, we are accelerating our transformation initiatives, focusing on growth areas such as sovereignty, security, while stepping up our effort to optimize our cost base.

Nevertheless, considering the complex condition of the global IT market and the French market macro environment, the ambition to have EBITDA decrease in '25 versus '24 is difficult.

Let's complete with MASORANGE, our joint ventures, which continues to create value with a strong focus on delivering synergies, which are close to our EUR 300 million target by year-end. In this competitive market, we achieved strong net adds in the mobile segment and maintained stable volumes in fixed. Revenues are up 1.7% this quarter. Services revenues benefiting from strong growth in both B2B and our new business initiatives, which offset the negative mix effect in a challenging telco market.

We have been as well able to close strategic alliance with Tier 1 partners in energy, insurance and alliance. The positive momentum on equipment sales also fueled growth in third quarter and is helping to extend the lifetime value of our customers. Lastly, we do confirm our outlook for 2025 for MASORANGE.

Back to you, Christel, for the conclusion.

Thank you, Laurent. I would like to conclude this presentation by confirming that our robust Q3 and 9 months results make us very confident in reaching our objectives. In addition, reflecting our continued focus on efficiency and operational excellence, we are upgrading our EBITDAaL guidance to at least 3.5% after a previous upgrade in H1.

Thank you for your attention. The floor is now open for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

As a reminder, journalists will have a separate Q&A in French at 10:30 a.m. Journalists, please stay connected after the presentation ends.

Today, our first question comes from Akhil Dattani from JPMorgan.

I've got 2, please, if I can. The first is on French consolidation. Christel, you mentioned the nonbinding offer that you as a consortium have now submitted to SFR. I guess the details are limited, but the one thing that stood out was that the percent of the total transaction price that Orange will pay is 27%, which seemed higher than people might have assumed given expectations that there is relatively small portions of SFR that you'd likely buy.

So could you just start by helping us maybe understand at a high level how that price was determined? And maybe any color you can give us on how we should understand what bits of SFR you could buy. And you mentioned within that in your commentary that you are willing to engage with [indiscernible] and the creditors. I just wondered if any sort of engagement has now kicked off so far. So that's the first question.

And then the second one, I guess, sticking with the event-driven aspect of these things is MASORANGE. In the last few weeks, there's been a lot of speculation around your engagement with your private equity partners around a potential buyout of the 50% of the asset you don't own. Any sort of update on what is actually going on and what you can share?

And I guess, more broadly, is there any sort of time line we should think about by which when you would need to make this call and then alternatively move to an IPO process? So is there any sort of time frame we can understand?

Thanks, Akhil. So on the French consolidation and the nonbinding offer, I won't provide you more details on the split than what has been already communicated. But as we've said, the B2B business would mainly be towards Bouygues Telecom and Iliad. So we are looking at B2C spectrum and assets. And of course, we've done the estimates based on the level of synergies we would generate and based on the -- on what we could purchase.

So it's really a value-driven -- it's a value-driven split. And of course, it's too early to provide you more comment given it's still a nonbinding offer, and we are still -- of course, we haven't reached an agreement with the seller, as you know.

On the -- I mean, engagement so far, I mean, I won't comment. As you know, we made public the fact that we have submitted a nonbinding offer given the importance of this transaction for the French market. And for us, Orange a listed company and of course, for Bouygues as well. Our main priority, of course, we know we would like to move as fast as possible in a process that could be long. But of course, it's for the seller to decide. They have different options.

We don't expect to make public every single discussion we would have if we want to move fast. But of course, we know there's a lot of media attention.

On MASORANGE, similar, there's a lot of speculation in the press. As you know, we are preparing our strategic plan for Orange. And as part of this discussion with our, I mean, 50% shareholder in MASORANGE, we are planning and we are working on the strat plan, the financial plan for MASORANGE. And as part of the discussion, of course, we are fully in line with what's provided for in the shareholder agreement.

And you know there's a lock-in period before an IPO can be triggered in April '26. But we are also investigating all of the options. As we said, they always remain open. So there's no specific time line and there's, for sure, no rush for us to reach an agreement. But clearly, the discussions we have on the financial forecast for the company and the ambitions we both have for the company is probably what's generating a lot of media and speculation, I would say.

If I may just add on the French side that, of course, the price that we would put is consistent with the asset and the value we would purchase, obviously.

Our next question is from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs.

I had 2 questions. One was just to see if we push a little further on, as you put it, the event-driven opportunities for Orange. I know there's not much you can say on French consolidation. But can you just talk -- you said obviously, you want to accelerate or you want to move fast on French consolidation.

Could you talk about your confidence in the approval process around consolidation more broadly in France in terms of both the EU competition authority approval and French authority approval and what's giving you the confidence to launch this bid? And then if there are any timing implications around moving fast there?

As a follow-up to that, just on the MASORANGE side of things, is the speculation around Spanish consolidation complicating the time line to kind of you reaching a conclusion on what you plan to do with that asset? And then just a separate operational question. In France, it looks a little bit like the competitive intensity at low-end, mobile has still a bit into low-end fixed. Is that true? And if you could just articulate what's going on there, that would be helpful.

Thanks, Andrew. On the French consolidation, first of all, as you know, there's a process where Altice France is -- has been restructured and the owner actually wants to sell. So that's the driver of all those discussions, number one. And of course, in that environment, we do believe that a French group of company providing synergies is the best solution to create maximum value.

Now when it comes to the regulatory process, the political environment, it's really too early, and we know that authorities will have to review that in detail. But in any case, if you look at the option, which is a piecemeal deal on one side or a solution amongst other telcos, we do believe that not only our proposal is the best one to protect the intensity of competition, but also to protect the ability of the industry to invest, and we know our networks require investment for security, for AI and for resilience.

So I mean, there's no -- we know the antitrust authorities are what they are. We know what happened in the U.K. with the CMA approval. We don't have any signal from antitrust authorities that they would approve such a transaction. We know based on our experience with both Belgium and Spain that they would review carefully. It could be EU or French processes. Actually, given we have 3 companies bidding for part -- the main part of Altice France, it would probably be 3 antitrust processes.

And so depending on any of us -- the 3, it can be France or Brussels. Then of course, antitrust authorities can decide to take the whole approach. But there's no doubt that both authorities would work together, I would say, on the assessment.

The main rationale for us on why this deal makes sense. First of all, it's something we've been pushing, and we are absolutely convinced that Europe needs consolidation -- national consolidation, but it's really when you look at the intensity of the competition on our mobile markets, I mean, the ability to create synergy and efficiency for us on mobile is also the ability to sustainably compete and offer low prices to consumers.

So that's really the driver, and that's going to be the core of our explanation, I would say, with antitrust authorities. Not to forget that this is a French group of companies in an environment where we are talking about highly critical assets. But again, there's no certainty that this deal would be approved until it is.

On MASORANGE, no, all the rumors and speculation on Mass Orange or all the speculation on what could happen in the Spanish market have no impact. I mean we looked at the valuation of MASORANGE in a stand-alone, I would say, view. And of course, we work actively to improve, I would say, our position in the Spanish market. That's the reason why we signed and we launched the premium fiber because we know there's a lot of players.

I do believe that consolidation in Spain will probably come first from smaller players, and we know some of them. Some of them are actually partners of us. But clearly, the market in Spain remains super competitive and will remain super competitive for quite some time. The comment I was making on antitrust authorities for France would be exactly the same for Spain, and we would not expect anything to happen soon or to be

[Audio Gap]

to reach closing for MASORANGE. So we don't take that into account, of course, for us.

When it comes to the competitive intensity in France, the low-end market remains very competitive, but it's true that in Q3, we've seen a number of entry price points increasing, and we are more around the EUR 10 for mobile and -- I mean, there's still RED, which is the SFRB brand cheaper than that. But we've seen a EUR 1, EUR 2, EUR 3 difference compared to what we had seen, especially in end of Q1 and Q2.

And on broadband, there's also promotions and for the low-end broadband, but the market remains stable compared to what it was before. And last but not least, of course, you know how important our convergence strategy is, and that's really for us the fuel and the growth engine in our retail market in France.

Next up, we'll hear from Josh Mills, BNP Paribas.

Two questions from my side, please. The first was just around Orange's group leverage. Would you be able to give us a bit of color about how you expect the SFR deal if it goes through to impact your leverage profile? And following on from that, does the leverage post the SFR deal still leave you with enough headroom to pursue other transactions such as buying in MASORANGE as an example?

And somewhat related to that, given that the French consolidation deal, if approved, won't complete until the second half of 2027, how should we think about how this impacts your shareholder returns policy to be outlined at the Capital Markets Day in February?

And then the second question for me is just going back to the operational performance in France. I think last quarter, you gave a bit more color on your expectations, how French service revenues ex PSTN should develop. Obviously, it slowed down 20 bps versus last quarter. How should we think about this going into year-end? Is there the chance that this is going to turn negative? Or do you still have the ambition of maintaining flat to slightly positive retail revenues ex PSTN in Q4?

Thank you, Josh. I'll start by your second question, and then Laurent can comment on your first one. Operational performance for Q4, we expect the same trend as Q3, which is a flat to small positive growth, excluding PSTN for retail services. So really same trend as Q3. And on the group leverage, Laurent can comment, but I think we've said before, it's very important for us. I mean, we want -- we know shareholder return is important, and we have a leverage that allows us to be flexible. And of course, remaining investment grade is important, but we think we have a solid balance sheet, and we have the opportunity to carry several transactions.

Josh, so indeed, as you know, we have a very strong balance sheet. Of course, the potential acquisition of SFR will have some impact on the leverage, but it will create as well a lot of value, as we said, which means that this leverage will basically be smoothen on a relative short period of time. Overall, we are confident that we can run both MASORANGE potential acquisition and our fair share of SFR purchase without, I would say, impacting the shareholder return, which remains for us a top priority.

Maybe just one other follow-up, if I may. If we were to see the bid price for SFR change or increase over the coming months, is the agreement for the asset split between Iliad, Bouygues and yourselves and the percentages given set in [ stone? ] Or would there be the potential for certain operators to change the amount which they're buying and the assets which they are acquiring as part of the deal? How much flexibility is there on the 27% split you have today?

Thanks, Josh. I mean you can be assured that the 3 of us have a very constructive dialogue, and that's what we want to have with the seller. Now obviously, I don't want to give you information that would jeopardize our ability to have the best negotiation in a transaction that's obviously very complex. As we said, we are value-driven in our approach.

Each company, let's not forget that we have a very strict antitrust process and that this bid has been prepared, of course, with all the scrutiny and to be compliant with the competition rules. So all of us -- we have our own models of valuation, but we also -- we have such an experience, and we know, of course, very well the French market. So that's something we would be able to discuss the 3 of us with the seller. But again, value-driven approach, which doesn't mean we're thinking of a mechanical negotiation for such a transaction with such impact on every 3 player.

Our next question today comes from Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank.

I've got 2 questions, please. First question, just, I guess, in the context of any potential antitrust filings that we do get, can you remind us what percentage of your B2B revenues and total revenues you derive from France, please?

And the second question on the operational side. Now this was the second quarter where you have upgraded your EBITDAaL guidance, yet we haven't seen anything change on the organic cash flow level. I appreciate it is a greater than metric. But are there any other moving parts at the organic cash flow level? I know last year, you absorbed a higher cash tax, yet still saw an upgrade, but any details you could give there would be very helpful.

Thanks, Rohan. As you know, we do not publish the split of our B2B between -- in France. But clearly, we have taken into account in our negotiation with Iliad Free and Bouygues Telecom, the fact that when we have high market share, I mean, you can count on our competitors to try to get assets that would help them grow and increase market share. So that's why B2B transaction -- the B2B part of Altice France would go to Bouygues Telecom and to some extent, Iliad Free, not to us. But we don't publish the split on B2B in France. On the organic cash flow guidance, Laurent?

Yes. Rohan, so our guidance on cash remains valid, above EUR 3.6 billion. So it's above EUR 3.6 billion of OCF. So that remains valid. I just take the opportunities to state that within our 3.8% of EBITDAaL growth in France, we have 0.9 points coming from the bank, which are not part of our OCF, as you know.

Our next question comes from Matthew Robilliard from Barclays.

Hopefully, you can hear me.

Yes, we can.

So I had 2 questions. The first one was around OBS. So you mentioned that the environment was tough and you've slightly or you will maybe change the guidance, at least what you deliver. And the question was a bit broader. I mean, clearly, it is natural to see you lose a bit of market share on communication. I also understand that on IT, it's a competitive market. But at the same time, we see a lot of growth for some services like cybersecurity, data centers, cloud and obviously, talks of the increased need for sovereignty in Europe should be a positive for you.

So maybe you could lay out a little bit where you see growth coming from at some point in the next future. And also, if you could give a bit of clarity in terms of your data center exposure, maybe if you could give us a sense of what is the capacity you have in France and in Europe? And how you expect that to grow?

And then the second question, I was going to ask again about the potential SFR transaction. And just a point of clarification because in the press release, you indicate that not all of the assets of Altice SFR are concerned by the bid. I also note that in the French press, there was some reference that the offer that you were making for the assets represented an EBITDA multiple of around [ EUR 6.6 billion, ] which kind of suggests, if I'm getting my math right, that the value of the EBITDA that you are bidding for is around EUR 2.6 billion. so quite lower than what the trajectory of Altice's EBITDA suggests for the full year based on the H1.

So I don't know if you can give a bit of detail as to what you're buying. I understand, obviously, there's no the French overseas. There's some service businesses of Altice that are not included. But if you could give a sense of what is the EBITDA as a whole you would be buying, that would be very helpful.

Thank you, Matthew. On the -- on Orange business, clearly, there's, of course, the structural transition from legacy connectivity to next-generation connectivity, and that's changing the nature of the services we provide, moving from a traditional telco to a more integration type of services. And we are investing in our evolution platform, so in really having a platforming approach for those services.

Of course, cybersecurity is clearly -- and by the way, next-generation connectivity is not a market that's declining. But of course, compared to the value of legacy, it's -- there's a value difference. But clearly, the next-generation connectivity is not a decreasing market. Cybersecurity, clearly, it's -- we've been investing for years, and we continue to do so.

On cloud and data center -- on cloud to start with, we are transitioning from some -- so part of our solution has been in the pruning of our -- of the portfolio. And so we have some transition effect, but that's clearly an area where we are investing on sovereign cloud, private sovereign cloud, public sovereign cloud with Bleu together with Capgemini.

When it comes to data center capacity, we don't provide details, but of course, we have capacity in all the countries where we operate, and we are investigating plans to accelerate in that field. Of course, we are not a pure player in data centers. So we have -- we are still thinking what should be our strategy. So not ready to provide you more details on this.

On SFR, clearly, the list of assets is what has been published. So it's very clear. It's everything in Altice France, but the overseas business, XpFibre, Intelcia, Ultra Edge and ATS. They are field services unit. So that's everything else.

When it comes to EBITDA, bear in mind that for us, the valuation is both, of course, multiple of EBITDA, which so far was based on the data we have, which is end of '24 as well as our own assessment of synergies and every of the 3 bidder has done its own assessed synergy plan. So we've done our math. And clearly, the value comes from the synergies as well. So it's not an easy straightforward EBITDA calculation.

Our next question today comes from Nick Lyall, Berenberg Bank.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great. If could I ask a couple on consolidation as well, please? On the argument, Christel, you mentioned the pro-consolidation argument, it seems you're going to use is to protect competition. So could you just explain to us why you think cutting out a disruptive operator protects competition here? Are you arguing that Altice France wasn't sustainable? Maybe you could help us with that.

And then secondly, it's going to be up to the 3 of you to put together remedies. So on the structural side, do you think there are any acceptable remedy takers left? Or do you believe the remedies -- are you thinking this is going to be behavioral now post the CMA decision, for example? So could you help us a little bit with what sort of remedies might we have to think about?

Thank you, Nicholas. I don't -- I won't say anything that would prevent our ability to run a smooth and open dialogue with antitrust authorities. But clearly, what we see and think of mobile consolidation, and we know that from our MASORANGE experience, where 18 months after closing, we are driving synergies that allow us to continue to compete on the low end as well as to compete on our A brand on the premium market. And we are driving synergies and the market and the price point for consumers has not changed on the contrary.

And so in France, I think what we know is that -- we know exactly the amount of synergies that can be driven by bringing more mobile customers or broadband customers on our infrastructure. And that's driving efficiency that in return allow us to continue to compete and to offer attractive price point for consumers while continuing to invest. Otherwise, you have to cut investments if you want to just continue to play in a super competitive market.

And remember that we would then end up with 3 players in the market, 2 of them being stronger. Of course, our objective is to be the leader in France. But 2 other competitors post consolidation, if that goes through, would have more ability to invest and would have more ability to compete head-to-head with us. So that's why we do believe that competition authorities should really look at it similar to what the CMA has done in the U.K.

Our next question comes from Stéphane Beyazian from ODDO.

Two questions, yes, if I can. The first one is, can you update us a little bit on the cost savings? And I'm partially thinking of the early retirement plan where you are in this regard and perhaps also the network step down. I think you were planning to launch a tender for the copper and have different contractors. And so I was just wondering where you stand on that as you continue to make progress in your cost cutting plan?

And the second question coming back to the offer. I was just trying to clarify one thing. So if you're contributing 27% to the bid, would it be fair to say that your share of the EBITDA of SFR is probably a little bit lower than that because you may be taking a bit more spectrum than some other buyers in the consortium? Would that be fair?

Thank you, Stephane. I'll start with your second question. I won't provide you more details. So unfortunately, we don't want to speculate on what could be. And remember, this is only a nonbinding offer at this stage, and we haven't agreed with the sellers. So I think it's really premature to provide you more details on that. But the split of assets is exactly the one that has been shared in the press release.

On cost savings, the early retirement plan is now open. It's been open for several months, and it's the -- I mean, the employees who are, I mean, deciding on a voluntary basis to accept it -- I mean, many have volunteered already. So it's really executing as per plan. And I don't know if, Laurent, you want to comment on the various cost savings, procurement and the copper RFP as well.

Yes. Stephane, So we continue to move full steam on the cost optimization, and you refer to procurement. So we are working on our EUR 18 billion cost base to drive savings on this part. The copper contract is one of the major contracts on which we are working with Jerome and the team in France, which is not yet decided, but will come for the next month. It is a jumbo contract indeed for the next 4 or 5 years. So we'll be, of course, eager to get the best value out of this contract to drive the strategic project for Orange France.

Our next question comes from Ottavio Adorisio from Bernstein.

Could you hear me?

Yes.

Perfect. I have a few questions, they'll follow up, but let's first start from Spain. The -- you basically -- recently monetized or announced the monetization of the FiberCo, the JV between MASORANGE and Zegona. Now Zegona, the main asset they brought with the clients. And therefore, the monetization of the assets is rely on the long-term commitment of Zegona clients to that network. Now Zegona has the habit of play in many different fields, and it looks to be likely that potential could be a target for Telefonica.

So I was wondering how difficult it will be for Zegona to move -- to migrate these clients? Are there any penalty fees in that particular deal? And can Zegona actually disentangle from that JV? Second point is on the credit ratings. You effectively reiterate that it does really matter the 2 deals you're currently negotiating in Spain and in France, you still remain investment grade, and that's true because basically, you have a quite large room. But it's likely that potentially the BBB+ could be downgraded by one notch. Are you prepared for that? Or you reckon that you have other levers to avoid that particular downgrade by one notch by the agencies?

And the third point is on the pricing. Pricing in the domestic, you made a lot of comments on the fact that there is a lot of competition on the low segments, the value segments. But I noticed that this quarter has been a bit different. It's not only been mobile where you still got an ARPU that's going down around 4%. But for the first time, I remember for how many quarter, you actually have a negative trends on the fixed ARPU. So if you can comment on that one, do we expect the repricing on fixed to continue and to have a negative trend in the next few quarters?

Thank you, Ottavio. On Spain, with the implication of Zegona and PremiumFiber company, be assured that, of course, we have long-term commitment from both, of course, MASORANGE on one side and Zegona on the other side. And you can -- you know that if we have a third-party investor like GIC in such a transaction, that's really something that has been carefully taken care of.

Laurent, the investment grade?

Yes. So -- Ottavio, so on the rating, of course, early days because we have -- as Christel explained, there is no deal in France, no deal in Spain. So all of that is pure speculation, of course. But globally, we have a strong BBB+ rating. We feel that we have capacity to stick to this rating despite all of this potential transaction. But then, of course, it would all depend on the timing and the sequence of it. But globally, we are very confident that midterm, we'll remain on this BBB+ rating that we enjoy today.

And on price competition in France, you're right that our ARPU for broadband is slightly declining compared to 1 year ago, but it's also slightly increasing compared to Q2. So that's what we can say. But I don't know if maybe, Jerome, you want to give more details on the pricing environment and what we've seen.

As you said -- thank you, Christel. As you said, the environment remains quite stable on broadband, while it's more competitive on the mobile low end in particular. And what is very important for us is the convergent ARPU. As you reminded, convergence is our growth engine and our convergent ARPU is increasing by 1.8% at EUR 78.6. So on broadband, we don't see so much intensity on the competition. It is true that some mid-range offers on the market and some promotions have been impacting the year-over-year ARPU, but still progressing on a quarter-over-quarter basis, as you said.

Next up is David Wright from Bank of America.

Hopefully, you guys can hear me. Two questions, please. I think on both the Bouygues call and your comments earlier, you suggested the regulation could be separate processes, possibly even -- I'm talking about, of course, the SFR deal, possibly even separate jurisdictions. But I assume these are not mutually exclusive. If any one of those regulation approaches were to find difficulties or unreasonable remedies, I assume the entire deal would be off. Or could there be any possibility, for instance, [indiscernible] to separately buy the B2B business of SFR?

I'm assuming any problem with any regulation that the whole deal is challenged. If you could confirm that. And I am a little confused just on the French broadband pricing. I think you said -- so you said that the ARPU is obviously down a little more now. What is happening? Are you losing higher-value customers and adding lower-value customers? And are the higher-value customers migrating into convergence? I'm just trying to understand that mix effect. Those 2 questions.

Thank you, David. On regulation, clearly, it's one proposal with 3 bidders and our proposal cannot be split apart. Otherwise, it's not the same. So now the regulation and the antitrust authorities would review case by case because they would review the impact for every of the 3 companies separately. But of course, it's in a global approach to the market of what the Altice sale would impact.

So clearly, even though it could be reviewed -- I mean, it would be a different size or one company. In the end, it's the assessment of one transaction and the impact for each company in the market. Now too early to say whether one authority would claim the leadership on the other one. What we know is that in any case, for any transaction when we were reviewing with Brussels, the Spanish transaction, of course, the Spanish authorities were reviewing carefully and remained involved by Brussels. So in any case, we know that both teams would review carefully this transaction.

On the French broadband pricing, clearly, as you know, we are gaining customers on broadband. And so we have indeed some of the new customers. Some of the new customers, that's why we call it the mix impact, have an entry price that's lower than the average ARPU that we had in our base, and that's why you see a small impact on the base. But again, you see the ARPU compared to Q2, and it's slightly increasing. So it's -- and we've had that impact in the past. So it's not really significant.

We don't see a spin down of customers moving from high offers or premium offers to lower offer. Of course, we have some migration from pure broadband to convergent customers. But -- and you see overall, every segment of our customers is positive in net adds. So all in all, we are adding more customers in our base and the mix. That's what we call the mix effect. Some of these new customers are coming with a lower price than the base. So that's the impact on the average ARPU.

Our next question comes from Carl Murdock-Smith from Citi.

Okay. We're going to come back to you, Carl. For the time being, we are going to take our next question, which comes from Ondrej Cabejšek from UBS.

I've got one follow-up and then a separate question on Spain. So the first follow-up is basically on the shareholder returns policy, which obviously you said is a very important feature for the company. Over the past 3 years, we've had a feature within this, which was that every year, the dividend was supposed to grow. So I was curious now that we only have a floor, you have more clarity into, I guess, the timing of potential deals and the potential amounts involved and therefore, the impact on your balance sheet.

I was also curious to, therefore, see whether the kind of growth element of the shareholder returns policy is something that you will be thinking about is very important for the next 3-year period. That's one question. And then the second question on Spain, coming from a slightly different angle, you have been in discussions with Vodafone also around potential RAN sharing, which obviously would have a benefit to your CapEx and also potentially to TOTEM, I believe. So I was just curious whether there is any update on those specific negotiations.

So on the shareholder return policy, I won't provide you more details. And of course, that's -- we know that's one item that we will cover as part of our '25 results in February and our Capital Market Day at the same time. So -- but yes, you're right, we have a floor at EUR 0.75 as reminded in our guidance.

On Spain, we already have RAN sharing on some areas of Spain between MASORANGE and Vodafone Spain. So nothing -- I mean, nothing new on that front to comment on. And of course, when it comes to tower companies and TOTEM, actually, we have been negotiating, but that was part of our synergy plan. When we combine Orange and MÁSMÓVIL, we have been renegotiating and working on the network synergies between the 2 companies. And also as part of that, all tower companies in Spain have been contributing.

And -- but of course, TOTEM was already supplying Orange and the network of Orange has been maintained. So not much to comment on top of that. But no, nothing new on the network synergies, I would say, beyond what we had already planned as part of the MASORANGE transaction.

So no progress on like the full RAN sharing project that's been kind of in the media in Spain?

I guess you're talking about some speculation around the creation of a specific vehicle where we would combine assets. Indeed, nothing to comment. We remain as we have -- as we are, which is we are sharing and we are using the Vodafone Spain network, and they are using the MASORANGE network in some areas. So -- but nothing has changed.

Great. So Carl, we're going to try one more time. So we're going to give you the floor. [Operator Instructions].

Our next question comes from Emmet Kelly from Morgan Stanley.

I've got 2 questions, please. The first question, please, is on your -- is on consolidation and it's on the potential impact on towers. Can you say if there would be any impact on TOTEM towers in France from a successful completion of the transaction? And secondly, just looking at the press release last week, you said that the nonbinding offer is subject to several factors, and one of these is the due diligence.

So as you get access to the SFR data room, what are you really looking for? Are you looking at the churn of the subscribers, the quality of the subscribers, the free cash flow profile of the business? You're looking for areas of overlap where you can target cost reductions? And what are your red lines there?

Thanks, Emmet. On the impact of any potential consolidation on the French market and specifically on TOTEM, of course, given our view is that we would create more synergies, we would actually load our network with more customers. So no impact foreseen. Of course, I would say, every day, our teams are planning for network evolution. And as you know, part of the transaction is to solidify the ability for telecom operators in France to continue to invest.

So I think this transaction on the contrary will probably provide more ability in the long run for all players in the market to invest, which I see as positive for TOTEM.

On the due diligence, I mean, nothing specific. This is really pretty standard, what we look at for due diligence. And of course, it goes from the financials, but also -- I mean, everything that you can think of -- but really standard. So no specific. No red lines. I mean it's really pretty standard.

Our next question comes from Fernando Cordero from Santander.

Okay. Two questions from my side. The first one in Spain and particularly also on the potential consolidation scenarios. And I would like to understand at which extent you would be interesting or you believe that MASORANGE would be, let's say, stronger if it would be regaining the full control on the mobile network today. It is having a RAN sharing agreement with Vodafone Spain. And I would like at which extent or in which scenarios you would be interested in having full control of this RAN sharing agreement.

And the second question, also starting from Spain, but ending on France. Given that the operations in Spain are now putting a lot of focus on, let's say, services on top of connectivity, starting with devices, but also other services like energy, [indiscernible] and so on, at which extent do you foresee this strategy to be potentially implemented as well in France?

Thank you, Fernando. So in Spain, on the network side and potential further market consolidation, we don't see -- I mean, we're not -- we cannot comment. As you see, we've created the PremiumFiber because we see the value of combining assets and making sure we bring more customers on an existing infrastructure. So we have this similar rational, very value-driven approach.

When it comes to mobile network, we don't -- I mean, as we said, nothing has changed. We leverage the Vodafone Spain network. They leverage our network. We are more looking for more synergies than trying to de-synergize amongst players given the competitive intensity in the market.

When it comes to diversification, a lot of the initiatives that MASORANGE has launched are actually already in place in France. We have been -- home security is a market we have launched a few years ago, insurance as well, content as well. So -- devices. I mean, equipment. Equipment sales, actually part of the growth in MASORANGE is somehow applying the same rules that Orange Spain or same recipe that Orange Spain was having from a marketing standpoint to the full MASORANGE scope.

So I think, of course, we keep on learning from things that MASORANGE is launching and testing in Spain, and that's useful to compare and to benchmark ourselves also with -- in France. But this is something we have done already as well in France for quite some time.

Fernando, we can add that around 8% of our retail services ex PSTN are coming from all of these adjacent and that there is a clear path in terms of positive evolution on this. And indeed, we are cross-fertilizing with our MASORANGE colleagues on these subjects.

Our next question comes from Eric Ravary from CIC.

So 2 questions. First one on OBS. In the press release, you don't reiterate your target to stabilize the EBITDA in 2026. So I wanted to check if you're removing the guidance for next year? And second question is on wholesale revenues in France. So the decline is accelerating over the 2 last quarters at minus 9%. For the next quarters, should we expect the wholesale to come to a double-digit decline due to the acceleration of copper decommissioning?

Thank you. On the Orange business, soft guidance, what we see clearly is that the overall market environment, be it the IT market or the French, I would say, macro environment is highly uncertain. So in that environment, our message is that it's difficult -- the guidance we have is difficult, but we are not setting a different guidance at this stage. And of course, our strategic plan for Orange business and our cybersecurity activity would be a core pillar of our next Capital Market Day in February.

But we continue to drive with the same intensity, our efficiency program, our transformation, our repositioning on the new portfolio. So it's really more the overall market environment that's making the execution of the plan uncertain and difficult, but it's not because we are slowing down on everything we've launched already.

On the wholesale trajectory for Q4, Laurent, it's probably the same, but...

So indeed, so what we said, Eric, is that the second half wholesale evolution will be in line with the H1, same trend. And all of that is definitely in line with our global guidance. You remind of EUR 1 billion revenue decline of wholesales between '22 to '25. So fully consistent with our expected trajectory.

[Operator Instructions] Now we will move on to our last question from Russell Waller from New Street Research.

Yes. I just have some questions on the offer to SFR, please. So first of all, could you just explain why your offer excludes those assets that you listed? So XpFibre, Intelcia, et cetera. Why were they excluded? And would you consider changing your offer to bid for the equity, so it includes those assets, for example, if that's what the seller wanted?

Second question, just obviously, the offer was made in public. Is that -- can you just confirm that, that standard practice? So for example, when you made the offer to MASMOVIL, were there negotiations in private first and then the offer was made in public? Or did you just make the offer in public as you did for SFR?

And then finally, could you just talk about whether or not there might be clawbacks or clauses included in the deal based on, say, the performance of the underlying asset at SFR? There are -- some people have concerns that there's underinvestment or CapEx is low, for example, and so you might buy an asset that maybe doesn't quite meet expectations. So how would you protect yourself from that aspect?

Thank you. On the overall transaction, and of course, I mean, the fact that we have a proposal coming from 3 players is not standard practice in submitting an NBO and especially with 2 players listed and given the amount we are talking about and the fact that we had officially submitted an offer, we saw -- and that was also, I mean, a legal interpretation, and that's something we've disclosed and we've discussed with the market authorities.

And so that's not something we decided on our own. But that's really what has driven the press release on the proposal, even though indeed, it's an NBO. And at this stage, it's not a confirmation that we've reached an agreement with the seller. So that's very clear. So very early to comment on other things like, I mean, clawback, clause or everything because that would mean we have a final and signed agreement. So of course, that's something we would be happy to comment on. We hope on the day when we have a deal agreed between parties. That's not the case today.

On the assets and some of the assets that have been excluded, XpFibre, as you know, is owned 50% by Altice only or 49% or 51%, I don't remember. So other players are involved, and it's an asset that has been for sale for some time. Some of the other assets are really independent assets and very different from our telco business when it comes to call centers for supporting Altice.

So we don't think these are assets that naturally make sense for us to acquire. And we don't think, by the way, that Altice would have difficulty to find -- to launch a sale process. But again, what we said is we believe our proposal is a good proposal. We want to be constructive in dialogue. So I don't want to anticipate any conclusion that would be reached, and I don't want to put words in the mouth of Altice. That's for them to assess what they want to do.

Thank you. That was our last question. So I will now hand it back over to Christel Heydemann for any concluding remarks.

Thank you all for joining our Q3 results. We are pleased with our solid results, reaffirming the strength of our strategy and efficiency focus. Based on these results, we are upgrading our EBITDAaL guidance from above 3% to at least 3.5%. Thank you all, and I wish you a pleasant day, and we look forward to seeing you at our next Capital Markets Day on February 19.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this Bouygues Group conference call. Please note that this conference call will be recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I yield the floor to Olivier Roussat, CEO of Bouygues Group. You have the floor.

Good morning, ladies and gents. Thank you for being on this call on such short notice. This morning to answer the many questions you have, I'm with Pascal Grange, Deputy CEO of Bouygues Group; Stéphane Stoll, the new CFO, since the 1st of August; Benoit Torloting, CEO of Bouygues Telecom; and Christian Lecoq, CFO of Bouygues Telecom.

I'll make a short introduction before moving to the Q&A. You saw the communiqué -- the press release. So there's a joint bid with Free-Iliad and Orange. This is a nonbinding offer for a large part of the assets of Altice Group for a total of EUR 17 billion. This joint offer is beneficial -- beneficial for the market by preserving a competitive ecosystem in the interest of consumers. It also benefits the seller. It offers an attractive valuation that includes a share of the synergies expected from this transaction. It also benefits the buyers because in our industry, we have fixed cost, and we'll have efficiency gains from this. This is a nonbinding offer.

It's only the first step of a long journey. There are still many steps to go, including the seller's agreement, the due diligence, the submission and acceptance of a binding offer and then lastly, obtaining the clearance of administrative authorities. The planned asset allocation is as follows: the B2B business will be taken over mainly by Bouygues Telecom and by Free-Iliad Group. The B2C business will be shared between Bouygues Telecom, Free Group Iliad and Orange. The other assets and resources, in particular, infrastructure and frequencies, will be shared between the 3 operators with the exception of SFR's mobile network in less densely populated areas, the Crozon network, which will be taken over by Bytel.

On the basis of this indicative asset allocation, the split of price and value would be around 43% for Bytel, 30% for Free-Iliad Group and 20% for Orange. If successful, this transaction will be -- will make a lot of sense. It will create value in the medium term, as I said earlier. And there's a number of stages, including the following steps. If the offer is accepted, we'll move to negotiation, then the due diligence to be carried out, enabling a confirmatory offer to be submitted. After these stages, which will take several months, the employee representative bodies will be consulted and an application will be submitted to the relevant administrative authorities, especially the antitrust authorities and the RCEP.

In France, we believe that the approval process will take over 18 months from the day of acceptance of the binding offer. This transaction will, therefore, not be completed before the second half of 2027. After the implementation of the agreement -- this will be followed by the implementation of the agreement. It would probably take a few years to be able to migrate customers and then benefit from the full potential of this transaction. Throughout this process, we'll pay close attention to the human resources issues at stake. As you can see, we're embarking on a promising process that will deliver value for all stakeholders, but this is a long process, a long ways, and there's no guarantee of success.

To conclude, I'd like to say again that we are convinced that this joint offer will ensure the long-term future of favorable conditions on the competitive market for the benefit of consumers. It will address the goals for the safety, independence and resilience of France's telecoms network and enable the necessary investments to be made with better return on investment. Pascal Grange, Stéphane Stoll and Benoit Torloting and Christian Lecoq are ready to answer all your questions.

[Operator Instructions] We have first question from Mathieu Rob from Barclays.

Thank you for the presentation. I had a few questions first. On the scope of the takeover, you said in the press release that some assets are excluded from this offer. I understand some are not consolidated that XP Fiber. But I imagine that some overseas assets are consolidated. So could you give a rough idea of the EBITDA or sales of the second quarter of Altice France? The scope on which you're formulating an offer, is that 90%, 95% of the total?

Then second question is on infrastructure. You have a JV, joint venture, with SFR, I think when it comes to the horizontal dimension of densely populated areas, will you acquire the whole of the joint venture? And thirdly, I wanted to know if in your bid, there will be a price adjustment mechanism depending on the operational performance of Altice over the coming years.

Right. Before sharing the floor, the scope of the asset purchase excludes [ DOM-TOMs ], XP Fiber, UltraEdge, STS. So these are client businesses, businesses only that are acquired. Your question was about fiber. This is the horizontal business, and Christian will answer your question.

About these 3 questions. First, on overseas territories, we don't have figures at the end of June 2025. We don't have data from Altice. So 2024 data are public. Then for fiber, [Audio Gap] are co-owners of the high-speed network for a densely populated area, and this will be fully taken over. And for the adjustment mechanism, we'll have to find an agreement with the seller before seeing what we can do in that regard.

We have a question by Eric Ravary from CIC.

Can you hear me? Hello?

Very well. Go ahead.

I have a few questions. First, on regulation authorities. The EU Commission, antitrust authorities will have a jurisdiction over this. Then share of assets and clients, understood. But what about the employees of SFR in France? What's the split that you envisage? And on the transitory mechanism structure, how will the cost be shared between the 3 operators? And for the client base split, the main purchaser for the B2B, will you -- could you provide more information on this?

First, we won't give more information on the base split than what we already provided. For regulatory authorities, each company purchases a client stock. So the modification of competition after this purchase generates a new situation for an authority regulation -- regulatory authority. There are 3 rules in total. There's one application by Orange, which will be examined by the authority, another submitted by Iliad Free and the third by Bouygues. Then the competent authority for us is ADLC and for our 2 partners, Brussels or the French authority may step in, but this depends on sales, volume and ratios.

Third question now on HR issues. Just to give you a ballpark idea. Generally speaking, between now and close, there will be 24 months, a little less than 2 years, waiting for reply by authorities, so maybe 2027, then a transition period for client migration. This will take yet again a few years. So generally speaking, we have a situation where a large part of SFR's employees will be necessary for the company for at least 2 years and then a share of them for the coming time. So this is an important issue, and we will pay close attention to this, but we're in an early stage for now.

Additionally, for the shared entity, Stéphane, do you want to take that question?

Yes. On this transition entity and this shared entity and the shared costs, all of this is very early stages. We're at the very first steps, a very long process. And as Mr. Roussat said, it might not be successful in the end. But what we are currently thinking about at this stage is that there are a number of assets and resources that could be placed in a shared entity that would exist for the transition period. And the costs for running these assets would be under this shared entity shared between the 3 operators.

Right. I think we've covered most of the questions that you answered -- that you asked, sorry.

We have now a question from Stéphane Beyazian from ODDO BHF.

Three additional questions on my side. You didn't make any announcements on a pre-commitment, for example, on pricing. We know that for some operations, there were some commitments that were made on the pricing levels for such transactions. So is there anything you want to add on that? Secondly, I know that you can't right now quantify the effect of the synergies, but could you maybe tell us whether you believe these synergies are easy to build or not? And tell us also about the reverse synergies.

And thirdly, can you make any comments on the political aspect of this transaction? You've shared with us some good news on French politics. Could you tell us maybe a bit more, yes, on the political nature and implications of this deal?

Stéphane, we made the announcement yesterday evening, and that's because we found an agreement the day before yesterday. So our agreement is not really based on the French Prime Minister's speech. It just so happened that -- it happened on the same day, but it's really not something that we had planned. So we made the announcement yesterday, and it just so happens that the Prime Minister was also giving his general political speech yesterday.

Now when it comes to the commitment, yes, there's the CMA and what happened in England recently. So this is something that we'll be discussing with the antitrust authorities. But once again, it's very early days. The antitrust authorities will definitely be much more involved when there will be an actual binding offer. But these are things that we are going to be discussing with antitrust authorities, both in France and Brussels. Now even though this is still early days, and we are not sure of any success. We do have a feeling that we can complete this transaction.

And on the synergies, Stéphane will take that question.

Regarding the synergies, we have to be very conservative once again because it's very early in the process. But what I can tell you is that we do expect synergies from that project, synergies in the networks, in the structures as well. It's a transaction which will lead to implementation costs.

So what we can say, generally speaking, in terms of process and by being conservative, like Olivier said, it's an operation, a transaction which will take a long time. There will be integration costs to factor in. In the first few years, after the closing, there will be 2 to 3 years to implement this integration process. And the synergies, we will be able to see them at the end of that process.

The backdrop is not exactly the same as 10 years ago. So the synergies that were discussed 10 years ago are not the same as today. Iliad has reinforced its network, and a large part of the synergies were made with the Crozon network.

If I could just touch upon this quickly? This is [ Jerome ].

Over to you, [ Jerome ].

Okay. So just to go back to what you were saying.

Is it going to be 2/3 OpEx, 1/3 CapEx? Will there be more OpEx, CapEx for the synergies?

Stéphane, this is Christian. The EBITDA is not something that is standardized from an accounting point of view. There are different methodologies, different approaches between ourselves and SFR. So we are looking more at the operating cash flow and not really on OpEx, CapEx. And once again, this is really very early days. We are working on data that has been made public data from 2024 as well. So -- we can't give you more information until we've completed our due diligence and come up with a binding offer. Right now, we have a set of assumptions, which is way too broad to give you more details.

Now we have a question from Joshua Mills from BNP Paribas.

Maybe if I could just go back to one that was asked earlier as I wasn't quite clear on the translation. When do you expect to know whether this will be looked at by the French or the European Commission regulators? And what are the important factors in determining which of the 2 entities it goes to? That's the first question.

Secondly, can you give a bit more detail about the customer split that you've announced yesterday? Is this being done by brand, so the SFR versus the RED brand? Or is that all still to be determined? And then thirdly, there is discussion in the press report about traffic migration to new networks and you've discussed synergies there as well. Can you give any early indication of how you're thinking about the mobile network development, potential shutdowns or where you might be able to save costs on that as well?

So first of all, for the split of client basis for B2C and B2B, the detail that we have given you is -- well, essentially what we've given you. We're not going to be sharing any more information. Secondly, when will the antitrust authorities be involved? Well, of course, they will be notified, but the authorities will officially look into this transaction when there is a binding offer. And they need to be notified and to be notified, we need to come up with a binding offer, which will outline very clearly what we intend to do. And then the authorities will analyze the transaction.

Thirdly, on the migration, and this is probably for Benoit and Christian. Over to you, gentlemen.

Yes. Now for the client migration, once again, we are very early in the process, as Olivier mentioned. The closing of the operation will take us to 2027, and that's when we'll start migration of the clients. We'll make sure for the clients that there will be no interruption of the service. We'll make sure that we can guarantee a continuity of service for the clients of SFR. That is definitely at the heart of our reflections.

At Bouygues Telecom, as you know, a few years ago, we acquired [ EIT ] and La Poste Mobile. And so we already have a success story of migration of clients. So we've been able to do this in a very transparent way for our clients, and we'll be building on that positive experience.

Now we have a question from Rohit Modi from Citi.

Most of them have been answered. I have 2. Firstly, if you can give any color on when you talk about the infrastructure sharing -- infrastructure split, does that mean the leased part of the infrastructure split as well? And if you can give a bit of color because you're saying majority of Crozon's comes into that place, which is kind of -- a major part of it has been leased by SFR. So how that structure will be?

Second, when you talk about the 18 months of approval period, that takes into account both EU and French authorities level or you're just talking about at the French authorities level? And lastly, can you give any color how are you going to fund this deal, if approved?

So for the 18 months, Stéphane is preparing an answer. But the 18 months, that's the necessary time. It could be 14, 16, 18. But when you're in a Phase 2 transaction, it's -- well, the necessary amount of time for the antitrust authorities to give us a green light. So it's not a set period of time. It's what we assume will be the necessary amount of time for a Phase 2 project.

Now for infrastructure and for financing, Stéphane is going to start and then Pascal.

So for the infra split, what we can say at this very early stage is that what we've imagined and what you've seen in the press release is that Bouygues Telecom will be taking over the Crozon network, which is essentially the network that is held and operated by SFR on the low-density area and which has been shared already with Bouygues Telecom for the last few years. And for the other infrastructures, they will be under this shared entity that we would be operating during the transition phase. And this transition phase will then lead us to thinking about the next step for the infrastructure where they are going to be dismantled or shared or split between the operators.

The solution is quite easy. You know that the financial infrastructure of Bouygues is very strong. We have a rating that was confirmed as stable a few weeks ago. So we contemplate financing. There will be debt financing fully and then mostly from Bouygues Telecom, there will be 2 steps. First, bank financing and then a bridge credit with a bond-based financing.

Now we have a question from Akhil Dattani from JPMorgan.

I've got a few questions, mind as well, please. Firstly, you talked around the different parameters that determine whether this goes to France or the European Commission. But could you give us your base case on what you're assuming? So which authority at this stage are you assuming will have jurisdiction over this transaction?

The second one is on potential remedies. Could you talk us through what your hardlines are at this stage, around what sort of remedies you would be willing to discuss with the authorities and which are hardlines and you're not willing to consider? And is there any sort of [ break fee ] on this transaction if the deal were not to go through?

And then the final thing would be -- you talked around synergies and things that might be relevant. But one of the variables we'll all be aware of is that all the major French telcos have sold their towers to different infrastructure operators in France. Is there any sort of opportunity to deliver synergy on the tower side? Or should we assume given those transactions, that's unlikely?

First question on competent authorities. We do have 2 overlapping authorities depending on the sales volume, including France and outside of France. For European groups, there are different jurisdictions. So very clearly, part of the transaction will be examined by Brussels and part of it will be examined by France. 2 entities -- 2 authorities, in Brussels or France, have homogeneous similar processes. So this would not yield different remedies or situations.

Then limits -- limitations, hardlines, it's still early days. Yes, we don't know now. It will depend on our discussions with authorities. And if the deal is turned down, refused, well, we'll go back to the previous situation. Well, there will be 4 operators. In the period of examination pre-closing, the market remains a 4-player market with the same level of competition.

On to synergies and the costs, talking about power, on to Christian.

Indeed, most of synergies linked to the network and towers. Most towers were sold, but operators have many costs. We invest and maintain active equipment around towers. That's the price of electricity. We must invest each year to renew the hardware, the equipment. Then there's the fixed grid. We have active equipment in this network. So synergies will come from this field after the transaction.

And now we have a question from Carlos Caburrasi from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Most of them have already been answered. So just one. Considering how aggressive SFR has been on pricing, how does the outlook improve for you and the sector if they get out of the picture? And would you expect any restrictions from the regulatory authorities in terms of pricing or their focus will be somewhere else?

Now the antitrust authorities and our discussions with them hasn't started, and it will start from an official perspective, when there will be a binding offer accepted by the seller. This is when you have the pre-notification and the notifications. That's when discussions with antitrust authorities will start, and we'll see different remedies at that juncture.

Secondly, on the level of commitment, there are a number of things done that might be done again. But right now, it's way too early to think about the remedies. The competitive level will remain interesting for consuming -- consumers, sorry, operators want to use their fixed equipment and infrastructure as much as possible. So with a 3-player market, there's still enough competition for end consumers.

And now we have a question from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs.

I just had one question. I understand you're not going to -- or you can't talk about potential remedies, et cetera, but we've all sat through attempts and disappointment in terms of market consolidation in Europe over the last decade or so. I understand your official interactions with the authorities haven't yet started. But what has given you the confidence both at the French jurisdiction level and the EU jurisdiction level that this time it might be different and that you can get consolidation over the line without offsetting remedies that undermine the benefits of consolidation? Any kind of insight you can give us in how you feel that the philosophies may have changed at those jurisdiction levels would be helpful.

Now first of all, if we are embarking on this transaction, is that we believe we can complete it. If we believed it was impossible to go from a 4-player to a 3-player market, we would not have gone ahead with this nonbinding offer. So we think that we can consolidate the market. First of all, because the consequences of the Draghi Report, the European report, which I think compels us to improve the infrastructure and telecommunication infrastructure. So yes, there are a number of things we need to look in a different light.

And then when you look at what's happened, okay, England might not feel like it's European, but they've gone from a 4-player to a 3-player market, likewise for Romania, for the Netherlands. So -- it is -- it seems possible to do that in Europe. There can be efficiency gains, which are profitable for consumers. So that's the feeling that we have that it is possible to go from 4 to 3. Of course, we'll have to discuss it with antitrust authorities, but we are optimistic. If we weren't optimistic, we would not have embarked on this journey. This is a very first step, but we have a definite feeling that we can close this deal.

Now we have a question from David Wright from Bank of America.

I wondered, based on your understanding of the EV and the financials, what is your perceived valuation multiple of the headline offer, please? I think when companies often publish offers, they also refer to the relative valuation. What is your understanding of the relative valuation?

Regarding the relative valuation in the press release, we said 43% of the EUR 17 billion and 43% of the value. That value was calculated with a multi-criteria method based on the EBITDA and on EBITDA minus CapEx, which I called earlier, the operating cash flow, which is, for us, the most important indicator.

And so what is your perceived operating cash flow multiple, just so that we understand your approach?

Well, the operating cash flow of SFR for 2024 has been made public. SFR is altogether more than EUR 1 billion of operating cash flow. And if we remove the few elements that are in the scope, we're still around EUR 1 billion. And that's the figure that we currently have.

Thank you.

And just to add to this, we are very, very early in the process. We haven't done any due diligence. We've based our offer on figures from 2024. So it's a bit early to really give you more color on this.

Now we have a question from [ Jerome Bour ] from MUFG.

Maybe just a quick clarification, if I may. You're saying that every operator is going to have its own application to the antitrust authority. What happens -- and of course, the level of decision may be different between an operator to another. So what happens if one of the offers is being struggling compared to the 2 others being accepted? It's a bit theoretical, but I'd like to understand how you've organized kind of -- or you think you're going to organize this kind of potential scenario.

Well, here again, we are very early in the process. This is once again a nonbinding offer. And in this offer -- it's a joint offer, but we are not here to support one of the operators if they were to pull out or if they were to have any difficulties. We look at this -- at another moment. But we still believe that we can complete this transaction. We are fairly confident.

Now we have a question from [ Ondrej Cabejšek ] from UBS.

Sorry to ask about the regulatory side again. But just to clarify your earlier answer where you said you expect your offer would be subject to French local regulatory approval and then perhaps the Iliad and Orange offers to Brussels. Could you just clarify that statement effectively? Is that your understanding of what's likely to happen?

No, this is not what I said, sorry. What I did say is that there are 2 competent authorities, the French authorities, ADLC, we are under their authority and then Brussels. And I said that the way notifications are made for our 2 partners depends on their sales in France and in Europe. So it's highly likely that one will notify Brussels. And for the other, it's not as likely. I can't talk on their behalf, but what is certain is that both authorities will be notified. And we'll see if it's 2 for Brussels and 1 for France or 2 for France and 1 for Brussels. But I didn't say that our 2 other partners will necessarily notify Brussels.

We have a question by Jean-Yves Guibert from BlueBay Asset Management LLP.

In your press release, there's a joint offer. And yet, as you said, each operator will bring its own offer to the competent authority, European or French. So will each offer be determined on the scope envisaged by each operator, or will each application to authorities be the same standardized? That is the joint offer.

No. The joint offer means that you have an agreement between the 3 operators that makes it possible to purchase assets in France as we excluded overseas territories, we excluded infrastructure and other features, UltraEdge, ATS and Intelcia. Each operator will take over a base and a split of infrastructure. This has been decided. And the acquiring of the base will change the competition of each operator on the French market. So each operator will put in an application to the competent authority for examination -- examination of the consequence of this transaction on the competition situation. So there will be 3 applications -- 3 dossiers.

As I said earlier, is that the antitrust authorities in Europe work on the same methodology. I do understand. But there are 3 offers -- distinct offers. So it could be that the conclusions are different for each offer, right? If this would be the case, and this is not congruent with the way we dealt with assets because we made it sure that this application is likely to be accepted. And if it doesn't go through, it will be turned down and refused. But this is not the way we went about this, and we are reasonably confident that we will see this through and that this deal will be accepted. But we're not there yet. It's early days.

At this stage, competition authority can only examine a precise well-defined deal. This entails an accepted bid. This will come in a few months. But for now, as I said earlier, we believe that in Europe in the current situation, the competition analysis has moved -- has changed. So this is why we're rather optimistic when it comes to this deal.

We don't have further questions. I'd like to give the floor back to Olivier Roussat for closing comments.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference call is over. Thank you for your attention. We are ready to answer all your questions. The whole team is ready to answer your questions. I'd like to remind you that the group's 9 months 2025 results will be published on November 5. Have a pleasant day. Thank you.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Orange's H1 2025 Results Conference. For your information, this conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

The call today will be hosted by Christel Heydemann, CEO; and Laurent Martinez, CFO; with other members of Orange's Executive Committee for the Q&A session that will start after the presentation.

And let me hand over the floor to Christel Heydemann.

Good morning, and thank you for joining our H1 results presentation. Today, we are pleased to share solid results with EBITDAaL growth of 3.8%, driven by a 70 basis point margin increase. Organic cash flow reached EUR 1.7 billion, up nearly 8% year-on-year.

Those results are fueled by robust retail commercial performance across France, Europe and Africa, Middle East. In France, our efficiency program led to an acceleration in EBITDAaL growth, reaching plus 0.9% with 1 point margin improvement and EUR 200 million of OpEx reduction. Africa, Middle East continued to deliver an outstanding double-digit growth in revenues and EBITDAaL. Thanks to these achievements, we are upgrading our full year guidance, and we are now expecting an EBITDAaL growth of more than 3%.

Let's start with a review of our strong H1 results. Over the first 6 months, the group generated EUR 19.9 billion in revenues, up 0.3%, driven by services growth and a very strong MEA region. EBITDAaL strong growth of plus 3.8% was fueled by double-digit performance in Middle East and Africa, accelerated growth in France at 0.9% and solid results in Europe as well as a good execution of the Orange Bank exit plan.

Our efficiency initiatives are bearing fruit with a 70 basis point improvement in the group EBITDAaL margin. We maintained discipline on eCapex with a CapEx to sales ratio of 15.2%, in line with our full year target. Organic cash flow reached EUR 1.7 billion, an increase of EUR 120 million, on track to reach our full year guidance of at least EUR 3.6 billion. Our balance sheet remains solid with a net debt to EBITDAaL ratio of 1.9x. Finally, we continue to deliver a sustainable performance. Our effort to reduce carbon emissions continued, down minus 41% in H1 2025 compared with 2015. To meet our Scope 3 ambition, we are engaging with our suppliers through our "Partners to net zero carbon" program.

Regarding digital inclusion, 4G population coverage in Middle East and Africa increased by more than 1 point during the first semester and reached 78%. We continue to invest in our trusted offer portfolio with a new B2C SaferPhone offer for teenagers, the creation of Orange Business Defense & Security division and the launch of Orange Quantum Defender.

Let's now zoom in on the France performance -- commercial performance. In France, in a flattish market, the competitive environment remains generally stable in the broadband segment and still competitive on the low-end mobile segment. In this context, we continued to implement our efficient commercial strategy grounded in market segmentation, strong customer loyalty and value. We are proud to have been recognized by Arcep, the French regulator, as the best mobile network for the 14th year in a row and to lead the market with the best-in-class churn and Net Promoter Score.

This strategy led to a robust commercial performance this quarter with 116,000 mobile net adds; 270,000 net adds on fiber; and 15,000 on convergence, with an improving momentum of the Orange brand. This is our best quarter in terms of total net adds in the last 10 quarters. This performance was driven by effective churn management with sequential improvement in a dynamic market.

Convergent ARPO continued to grow by 1.8% year-on-year in Q2, while mobile ARPO decline reflects the competitive landscape in the low-end segment. Consequently, retail services, excluding PSTN, grew by 0.9% in H1, outperforming a flattish market in value. Looking ahead, we expect a small positive growth for retail services, excluding PSTN, for the full year 2025.

I now leave the floor to Laurent.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Christel. So let's start with the revenues, up by 0.3% for this half year. Services revenues are up by 2.1%, mainly driven by Middle East and Africa. This was offset by the expected decline of wholesale at minus 4% and of equipment sales, in line with market trends.

From a division perspective, MEA continued its impressive double-digit growth. Europe revenues reached stabilization, while France ex PSTN retail growth was offset by the expected decline in wholesale and equipment. Finally, revenue trend for Orange Business continued to be impacted by the competitive IT environment and portfolio pruning.

In terms of efficiency, we accelerate on our focus on cost savings, very much on track with our EUR 600 million target by end 2025. I want to underline the very positive result of our efficiency, in particular in France,with 4% OpEx reduction as targeted in this half year.

Moving to EBITDAaL. Growth accelerated to 3.8% in H1 with an EBITDAaL margin up by 0.7 basis points and increasing for the sixth consecutive quarter. France confirmed its ability to sustain EBITDAaL growth, supported by OpEx efficiencies in line with our target. Middle East and Africa pursued its outstanding performance, growing double digits for the 10th consecutive semester. Europe demonstrated solid EBITDAaL growth in line with expectation. And Orange Business, to end, is on track to reach its 2025 target, thanks to a sequential improvement.

Moving to net income, increasing by close to 7%, excluding the impact, net of tax, of the noncash provision booked in connection with the French workforce planning agreement signed in Feb. Higher EBITDAaL in H1 2025 was partly offset by increase in amortization costs related to investment and tax.

Moving on, on CapEx. We keep our discipline by staying at close to 15% eCapex over sales ratio, while we continue to invest in our high-growth business in Africa and Middle East.

Organic cash flow is up EUR 120 million, reaching EUR 1.7 billion altogether for H1. Strong cash improvement of nearly 8% is driven by EBITDAaL growth and change in working capital. We are well on track with our full year guidance of at least EUR 3.6 billion for the full year. Free cash flow all in reached EUR 1.1 billion, with anticipated slight decline year-on-year due to phasing in telco license payments between '24 and '25.

On to the net debt at 1.9x EBITDAaL, very much in line with our guidance of around 2x, a slight increase in H1 notably due to the call of EUR 450 million of hybrid bonds in April and phasing of free cash flow all in.

So let's turn to the business review and starting with France, with an EBITDAaL up by 0.9% year-on-year, a 1 point improvement in the EBITDAaL margin. And this, thanks to an historical cost reduction of 4% driven by our efficiency program. In terms of revenues, the growth of retail ex PSTN of plus 0.9% in H1 was offset by the expected decline in wholesale and equipment. This improvement of H1 EBITDAaL trends allows us to confirm firmly our objective of growing EBITDAaL in France in 2025, slightly more than in 2024.

Turning to Middle East and Africa, which continues to deliver a very strong performance, demonstrating again its positive momentum. Revenues is up double digits, driven by our four key growth drivers. MEA posted an outstanding 13% EBITDAaL growth in the first half of the year, cementing 10 consecutive semesters of double-digit EBITDAaL growth. Based on this strong performance, we are upgrading our ambition for the full year from at least high single-digit EBITDAaL to double-digit growth.

Continuing with Europe. Revenue stabilized this quarter at 0.2%, driven by services growing at 1.2%, in line with Q1, thanks to an effective volume -- value strategy. Net add remains robust with mobile well above 100,000 for the fifth consecutive quarter. Convergence revenues demonstrated a performance increasing by 5%.

In terms of profitability, EBITDAaL is up by a bit more than 2% and margin is up by 0.6 basis points, fueled by services revenues and efficiency savings. Looking ahead, we do confirm 2025 outlook with a low single-digit EBITDAaL growth.

Moving to Orange Business. Revenue decreased by 5% in the first half, reflecting the impact of last year's portfolio pruning and the challenging macro environment. Orange Cyberdefense continued to deliver a solid growth of 7% in the half year. Going forward, our cybersecurity business will be strengthened by the acquisition of ensec in Switzerland that we announced last week.

We also continue our push on sovereignty and security with our new defense and security vertical, SecNumCloud certification of Cloud Avenue and the launch of Orange Quantum Defender. At the same time, we are actively pursuing our cost base optimization and transformation initiatives. Cost savings on SG&A allow us to further improve our EBITDAaL development to minus 5% in H1, moving toward our goal of halving the full year decline versus 2024.

Turning to MASORANGE. Our JV continued to create value with a strong drive to deliver synergies, well on track to deliver EUR 300 million by year-end. From a business perspective, revenues are up 4.7% in this first half, driven by MASORANGE's strong commercial performance with positive net adds in fixed and mobile segments.

Services growth also reflects remarkable expansion in B2B and in new businesses such as insurance and energy, in addition to the positive momentum on equipment, helping to extend the life time value of our customers. Adjusted EBITDA is up by close to 13% in H1, fueled by revenue momentum and synergies.

Back to you, Christel, for the conclusion.

Thank you, Laurent. I would like to conclude this presentation by confirming that our robust H1 results make us very confident in reaching our objectives with an EBITDAaL growth now expected at more than 3%.

Thank you for your attention. The floor is now open for questions. I am with the Orange Excom as well as Meini, the CEO of MASORANGE.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question is from Akhil Dattani from JPMorgan.

Can I ask two, both on France, please? The first is more operational, and I just wanted a bit of an update on what you're seeing in the French market. I guess, Christel, you mentioned very good KPIs in the quarter, but you also mentioned a softening in the retail ex PSTN. So I'd just love to understand better the specifics of just what you're seeing?

And specifically, when we think about H2, I think you mentioned retail ex PSTN will remain similar to the Q2 level of between 0% and 0.5% growth. If you could just flesh out that. And what gives you the confidence you can keep growing EBITDAaL as well as you have in H1 into H2 in that context, a bit of an update on cost cutting. So that's the first question.

And then the second question is on French consolidation. I'm sure you've seen that there's been a lot of speculation in the press in recent weeks and months. And specifically, we've seen comments around access to a data room now being provided by SFR to the various operators. And we've also seen comments on the French finance minister and industry ministers around the process. So I guess, I'd love to understand what can you tell us around what actually has changed and happened. And actually, where are we in terms of what we're seeing on the consolidation process?

Thanks, Akhil. So on the French market, as you've noted, indeed, for H2, we see a flat to small positive growth for us. And clearly, our market dynamic, and as you -- as we've said, we are in a flattish market with a low-end mobile market that remains very competitive. Our strategy is focused on convergence, which means reducing churn, and we are very proud to be focused on this loyalty strategy. We have the best NPS. We have the best network that's been reconfirmed again in -- for 2024, and we have reduced churn.

And so as you can see from our ARPO in Q2 and H1, and that's what we expect to continue to see for H2, I mean, ARPO and convergent customers is what's driving growth, while on the contrary, the mobile-only market remains competitive. And as you can see, we have a slightly reduced ARPO in this market, knowing that, of course, the mobile-only market is only less than 13% of our total revenue in France.

So in that environment, clearly, we continue to execute our strategy. We will continue to do some very tactical price increase, more-for-more type of price increase, but limited compared to what we've seen in the past. So as you've noted, our confidence on EBITDA is mostly driven by all the efficiency program that we've launched.

Of course, we continue to invest on customer loyalty, but we drive efficiency, and that's operational efficiency, procurement, of course, workforce efficiency. We'll continue to benefit from the senior part-time plan that we've signed earlier this year, AI and all actions that we've launched. We continue, of course, to have the wholesale headwind and -- but this is well known and no surprise.

So we are very confident with our trajectory. But in a market that's obviously, I mean, competitive and flattish, so when it comes to consolidation opportunities, my first message is, of course, we do think that there is a need for consolidation. This is true in France, and I think this is true for Europe, and this is following the report from Mario Draghi at the European Union 1 year ago. So no surprise in that environment.

Now where do we stand in that environment? Of course, France is our first market. We've been very active with consolidation in the past in Romania, in Belgium and, of course, in Spain, now with MASORANGE. We do welcome the U.K. decision moving from 4 to 3. As you know, SFR is in the process of restructuring its debt. It's not over yet, so we cannot make any comment on what SFR wants to do. But I can confirm that France being our first market, we are obviously ready to engage. And indeed, there are preliminary discussions between operators on what could happen. Of course, this is still early, but again, I do believe market -- in-market consolidation makes sense.

Our next question comes from Josh Mills, BNP Paribas.

Similar ones for me, I'm afraid. But just on -- the first question would be around the EBITDA trajectory in the second half, a bit more explicitly. And perhaps, we could frame it in terms of margin drop-through in the revenues that we're seeing because, obviously, you've been able to deliver solid EBITDA growth, nearly 1% in the first half despite a slowdown in service revenues. Is that how we should think about the EBITDA trends in the second half of the year, i.e., does where consensus sits around 1% EBITDA growth for France still makes sense given the competitive trends you're seeing? That would be the first question.

And then secondly, around consolidation, it would be great just to hear your latest thoughts on where Orange's priorities are if a deal were to materialize. And what I mean by that is, what kind of assets would you see as most valuable for the Orange Group to acquire? And then maybe any high-level thoughts on where you think the kind of challenges might be? So what are the sticking points as we go through the process, be that SFR, debt restructuring, potential valuation, regulatory process? Where do you think the biggest hurdle comes if you enter into what would be a 1- to 2-year process?

Thanks, Joshua. So on the EBITDA trajectory, I mean, we are very confident. And in H2, we expect it to be very similar to H1 in terms of underlying trends.

I don't know if, Laurent, you want to give more colors.

Yes. So on the H2, we see indeed an EBITDAaL evolution year-on-year, very similar to the one of H1. We don't see any seasonality, as Christel say, in terms of retail ex PSTN. We see a flat to small positive growth in terms of revenues. And of course, we'll continue to expand and accelerate on the cost savings, EUR 200 million of cost savings in H1. And we'll continue the effort in H2 to get to this stability in terms of our evolution -- same evolution in H2 in terms of EBITDAaL.

When it comes to scenarios for France, as you can expect, I'm not going to give you a lot of details given, of course, we don't want to disclose, but let me first insist on the environment that, indeed, SFR or Altice is still in the process of finalizing its debt restructuring. And this is, of course, a prerequisite. And France is our first market. We are a leader in France. But the first priority, as I said, is to make sure that there is a clear case for a 4 to 3 market consolidation.

And it's true that this means antitrust authorities, political support in an environment where this is not completely obvious. Then I'm not going to give you comment on which asset could be of interest, given it's very early, very premature. And I don't want to disclose anything that would be used in the negotiation against us, as you can expect.

Our next question is from Ondrej Cabejsek from UBS.

I have a similar pattern of questions, please. So two of them, one is a bit higher level on the EBITDA building blocks into 2H because I can see a couple of things that could potentially improve momentum in the second half for the group level because, obviously, business, for example, ICSS, these units should improve. So if does -- if that does happen, if you continue to cut cost as you'd have in France, you could be actually close to 4% EBITDAaL growth on the group, which then would bring your group OCF closer to EUR 3.7 billion. So I'm just wondering if there are other things in the bridge between EBITDAaL and OCF that could also be a bit worse in the second half, that is the reason why you didn't kind of upgrade the OCF number for the full year as well. That's one question, please.

And the second question, obviously, consolidation again. So in terms of your potential pipeline of deals, so obviously, you've got two of them, one in Spain, the reconsolidation that you are aiming for; and then potentially the deal in France that we've been talking about. So I'm curious as to whether you have spoken to credit rating agencies on the options to, for example, use hybrid debt and at what extent, if so, in order to impact the -- or limit the impact on your balance sheet if you do both deals, for example.

And then in your thinking, how would that influence the guidance around potential dividend -- or dividend growth, rather, which is, I guess, what investors are quite focused on in the sense that everyone would really like to see you continuing to guide for an absolute growth in the dividend over the coming 3-year period?

Thanks, Ondrej. I think on the -- on your question regarding H2 and guidance, of course, you remember that we've upgraded our OCF guidance for the full year to more than EUR 3.6 billion. So we've done a slight, I would say, upgrade in -- of our guidance for EBITDAaL to be, I mean, more than 3%. So we did -- of course, we do not comment on the details, but you're right to say that we expect, and as I said, in H2, that's similar to H1 with some improvements, and Orange Business continues to drive its transformation plan. H1, H2 for France, we commented before. MEA, we've upgraded to double-digit EBITDAaL growth.

Now when it comes to organic cash flow guidance, we said more than EUR 3.6 billion. So we remain in line with this. And we are very committed, of course, to delivering it. So not much to comment. We had some one-off impact in H1 on ICSS, for instance,which, of course, will not come back in H2, but we are rock solid on the guidance, and this is what you can remember.

On the pipeline of deals, you're right. France, we commented earlier. Spain, as you know, really too early to talk to credit rating agencies, but we know we are very committed, of course, to our cash flow and to our return to shareholders. We've commented on the floor for the dividend in 2025. As you know, we have a Capital Market Day in February where we will guide for the 2026 and after.

Of course, for us, M&A deals means value creation, and we want to -- we know that France and Spain are two critical markets for us. So we see these as priorities. And we do think that we have the opportunities to manage that while keeping, of course, our rating and investment-grade status. But of course, we know and we do think that we can do that while, of course, creating value, which means meeting your expectation. Of course, I'm not going to give you a comment on 2026. This is, of course, for the Capital Market Day in February, but your question and your attention is very clear to us. And we think we can meet all objectives.

Our next question comes from Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank.

I have two questions, please, focused on France again. Christel, you mentioned the scope for targeted price increases, which I think is something which we have seen to some extent in the first half. In the context of the kind of flattish market, should we think about -- those practice growth market, sorry, should we think about those increases across the board or focused on certain products?

I think, previously, you've said that the high end of the market, convergence has been very robust, but is there still scope for some price increases there? Also I guess, I saw you guys are now giving 5G away temporarily, similar to something you did a couple of years ago. So are these strategies, which we should think about to stimulate that growth in the second half of the year and into '26?

And secondly, just on the OpEx. You mentioned OpEx reduction 4% in H1 citing labor and external purchases. Now I think the labor plan -- reduction plan you highlighted in last year was more back-end loaded over the period, so more benefits in '27, '28. Are you starting to see some of those benefits come through now? So is there a scope for upside to that saving target? Or is it more phasing?

Thank you, Roshan. On the France targeted price increases, of course, all of that in a flattish market, as you said. When we look at the ARPU increase, it's very limited due to price increase, and it's mostly package and value increase with additional services. And of course, that means increasing the number of mobile lines, for instance, per convergent customers. That means, of course, content. That means insurance, cybersecurity and upgrading from low-end offers to higher-end offers.

We have seen, though, some tactical price increases. And including on the low end of the market, including in July, we've seen less data in the mobile package entry prices. And we've seen that from all players, including Iliad, who has done a plus EUR 1 price increase on one of its packages, which historically has not been the case.

So I think this is something that we expect to continue to see. And as you know, Orange is never the first one to drop prices. So of course, we want to play on volume and value, which means that we play with all our A brand, B brand, et cetera. But it's true that we see less promotions. And somehow, we've seen in July some -- a better environment. But again, this is -- we will be the one trying to drive it across the board. But again, keeping in mind value first, of course. And when we do price increases, that's because we think and we know, and it's always more-for-more type of mechanism, which means that customers have the option, as always.

On OpEx reduction, you're right to say that the latest early retirement plan that we signed in February will mostly bring impact end of this year, but mostly '26 and after, '27, '28. So some of the OpEx reduction that you see is actually the consequence of previous plans that we had in place as well as a lot of the transformation that we are driving, operational efficiency, making sure that, for instance, we load our technicians first before using subcontractors and things like that. So there's a lot of those efficiency are really driven by operational efficiency and many of our quality programs.

Our next question is from Carl Murdock-Smith from Citi.

I'll break from tradition from my peers and try and ask about something else other than France. So starting on Orange Business and the acquisition of ensec in Switzerland, I was just wondering if you could add a little bit more color around that acquisition. But more broadly, are you interested in further bolt-on acquisitions within Orange Business? How large is cybersecurity within Orange Business, given that it's growing 7%? And what about ensec particularly attracted you?

And then secondly, I wanted to ask about equipment sales kind of across the group. So if I look at France or I look at Europe, equipment sales are growing -- or declining worse than the kind of service revenues. But then if I look at MASORANGE, equipment sales are growing faster than service revenues by quite a long way. So can you talk about the kind of reasons for that? Is it market reasons? Is it commercial strategy reasons? I'd just be interested to hear what you have to say.

Thank you. On the Orange Business, so commenting on the ensec acquisition in Switzerland, so it's typically a bolt-on acquisition, and we have done -- previously, we have done one -- another one in Switzerland, I think, 2 years ago. And we do expect to continue when it makes sense to do this type of acquisition.

In parallel, by the way, we are also doing divestment. So you can call them bolt-on divestments. But as part of our portfolio pruning for Orange Business, we have concluded a small divestment of our workspace activity in DACH, and we have a few other -- we did a small divestment as well in France. So this is part of our portfolio pruning.

When it comes to cybersecurity, of course, this is a growth market for us, and this is a market where we've been gaining share, and we continue to invest to gain share. We see cybersecurity more and more as the entry discussion with customers. And so more and more connectivity is sold with cybersecurity. And this is true, of course, with large accounts for already quite some time, but this is very true for small and medium business customers. And this is something that we continue to invest on as part of our trust positioning, and that's why we've launched also some new offers, Quantum Defender, which is, of course, for the post QD and to make sure that when quantum computing comes at scale, we can continue to protect. So we are clearly investing in that field, and this is part of our transformation for Orange Business.

On the equipment sales, every market is different. But overall, the equipment market in Europe is declining and what MASORANGE is doing very successfully is to replicate on the full MASORANGE portfolio of customers what Orange was doing with the high-end customers. Remember that equipment sales, it's not just the equipment sale that we look at. It is also the full value of a customer and the reduction it can bring on churn when customers buy equipment with us. And so we have programs, and we compare that across countries.

But overall, the equipment market is decreasing. The equipment values and the life time of equipment is expected also to increase. This is also part of our carbon reduction plan. But we do it in a very, I would say, consistent manner, looking at the full value of customers. And we know that equipment sales drive visitors in our stores, and equipment sales is a way as well to reduce churn and to shield our customers.

So this is -- but Spain somehow is the effect of the MASORANGE JV and making sure that we apply across the board what Orange was doing before in Spain. And then you see very different dynamics across the different markets. We see it as well on the B2B market where there's less, I would say, equipment renewal from enterprise customers. And you see that in our mobile revenues trajectory for Orange Business.

Our next question comes from Nick Lyall, Berenberg.

Next question is from Stephane Beyazian from ODDO.

My question has been asked.

Next, we have a question from Andrew Lee, Goldman Sachs.

Just two questions for me. Firstly, on wholesale, I'm cognizant, Christel, that you want to hold back some things for the 2026 CMD. But just what -- the wholesale losses looked to have ticked up a little bit. Is there any kind of color you can give on what's driving that? And any sense on trajectory into 2026, given I'm guessing you've got pretty good visibility on that now?

And then just second question, going back to -- well, following up on a couple of questions earlier on the retail ex PSTN trend deterioration. I'm guessing that is pretty much full drop-through into EBITDA trends. Could you just go -- into EBITDA. Could you just confirm that? And then the question really is, what has surprised you in terms of that trajectory in France? I know that the competition is in mobile, but what surprised you in terms of the intensity of that competition? And is there anything that gives you any confidence that, that will abate outside of the consolidation hopes?

Thanks, Andrew. On the wholesale, we are absolutely in line for '25 with what we had presented in our last Capital Market Day. And of course, the decline is mainly related to copper evolution. And so we expect EUR 1 billion revenue decrease, 2025 compared to 2022. This is the Capital Markets Day, EUR 400 million EBITDA loss between -- over the 3 years, with EUR 200 million upfront and EUR 100 million in '24, EUR 100 million in '25. So we are absolutely in line with that.

When it comes to, of course, moving forward, we are in the process of building our copper decommissioning plan. And as you know, this is a huge industrial program. We have launched RFPs for companies to pull out the copper and then to recycle it. And so we're in the final process. We haven't selected them, and the RFPs are not finalized.

And then, of course, when it comes to wholesale trajectory, some of that is also related to the commercial decision of our competitors and to accelerate migration to fiber. So there's no surprise. Of course, I won't give you a comment on 2026, but we are really in the process of building this wholesale and, I would say, this industrial plan, while, of course, working with the regulator on making sure that we don't leave money on the table with our competitors when it comes to unbundling price or as well the fiber wholesale price.

Remember that in our wholesale revenues, most of it -- some of it, apart from copper, is sustainable revenues because, of course, we have a huge fiber network in France. We have civil engineering. So -- and we had some price increase. So we continue to work with the regulator to make sure that we have the proper return on investment for this infrastructure. Of course, we have MVNO type of wholesale and so on. So again, this is the full combo, but not everything in wholesale is copper related, and some of it is sustainable.

When it comes to the retail services trajectory, excluding PSTN, no surprise in Q2 because when -- in our Q1 results, we had guided on the fact that in Q1, we were still benefiting for -- from some price increase that had been done in 2024. So we had some price increase mechanism in Q1, which we were expecting not to see in Q2. So no surprise. And we see H2 in the same, I would say, trajectory as Q2, so small to positive growth for our retail, excluding PSTN services.

As we commented, this is very much driven by our convergent value strategy, while, of course, playing on the full market, which means that we address low-end market as well and volume. But as you can see from our commercial results in Q2, we have a very solid commercial engine, both on mobile-only, broadband-only as well as convergent, and this is really what's -- what makes us confident on the trajectory.

Our next question is from Emmet Kelly, Morgan Stanley.

Actually, the bulk of my questions have already been answered, but I had a specific question, please, Orange Business Services and on the creation of new division. So the Defense & Security division was created just a few weeks ago. And obviously, this is a big theme in Europe at the moment with a new NATO defense targets. I think France is currently spending about 2.1% of GDP on defense, and NATO was asking for a step up to 3.5%.

Now can you talk about the potential role that telcos could play in higher defense spend? What kind of products are we looking at? Is this network slicing? Is it cybersecurity? Is it secured communications and whether you can say that the lack of use of Chinese equipment in your French network might be helpful for winning future contracts?

Thank you, Emmet. So indeed, we are investing -- and by the way, this division is not focused on France only because we see similar trends across Europe, and we have similar discussion with all governments. And of course, we are not a player in the battlefield type of solution, but there's a lot of needs for more digital solution from defense and security teams. Of course, we already have Orange Cyberdefense.

But if you think about IoT, cloud, AI driven, of course, 5G slicing, all of those can be -- and cybersecurity, of course, all of those can complement needs from, I would say, authorities in those markets, knowing that, of course, defense is one sector. But if you think about all critical infrastructure, think of energy, water, transportation, et cetera, they have very similar needs. And so -- and we have this know-how. So too early to give a comment.

But for instance, on cloud, we obtained the SecNumCloud certification in France for our Cloud Avenue solution. As you know, we're investing with Capgemini on Bleu, a 50-50 JV to offer Azure Light in Microsoft application in a SecNumCloud environment in France, and we have a number of initiatives like this one. So that's what I can say here.

Our next question is from Fernando Cordero from Santander.

Okay. It is just related with -- let's say, with the portfolio of the group. In that sense that your portfolio decisions pipeline is quite busy, I just would like to understand at which extent you may use some your current assets as, let's say, potential sources of funds to -- let's say, to fund these potential transactions that you may be doing?

And in particular, I'm talking about TOTEM. In that sense, at which extent are you maintaining, let's say, the strategic position of TOTEM? Or at which extent TOTEM maybe could be understood as a potential source of funds for this pipeline that you are having already?

Thank you, Fernando. What I take as -- I will revert the question saying that, indeed, we have a very solid balance sheet. But on top of that, we have a lot of assets on our balance sheet, fiber infrastructure, tower infrastructure and so on, that have tremendous value. Let's be very clear, today, our focus is to make sure that we can create value for our shareholders by -- on every single M&A transaction when we have them by the synergies that those transactions create and the value they generate.

And we do think that we have a balance sheet that today allows us to do that without, I would say, forcing us to make some portfolio arbitrage. That being said, we constantly review our portfolio of assets. And if there is value creation opportunities coming from those portfolio, we will drive them. But we are not in a position where we feel that we have to make some portfolio decision to be able to materialize some of our opportunities, if I think of France or Spain, of course.

Our next question comes from Ottavio Adorisio from Bernstein.

It's just a follow-up on actually the previous one. It's about your thinking on infrastructure ownership. It's true, you have a lot of assets, but the difference between assets you can sell like your subsidiaries and asset that you continue to use is quite different. You've been one of the few incumbents that kept ownership of the towers and most of your fiber networks. You recently have watered down that strategy in Spain.

So my question is, first, if you can give us an update on what's going on, on NetCo monetization? We heard that demand has not been great from private equity, if you can update on that. And second, considering what you said, it's true that the approach on infrastructure ownership is changing. You no longer see full ownership of infrastructure in France as key, and you're prepared to sell minorities or sell altogether the asset.

So on the FiberCo in Spain, nothing has changed, and we are in the process of -- as you know, we have signed a binding term sheet between MASORANGE and Vodafone Spain Zegona earlier in January. And we are in the process of attracting a financial investor for this NetCo. The process is close to be completed. We had announced a signing over summer, and we still plan this over summer for closing by the end of the year. So we are absolutely in line with that.

I'm not going to make any comment on rumors, on the financial structure or the valuation because, I mean, I'm not going to comment, but we are very confident with our ability to create value with this NetCo and, again, confident on our ability to close this transaction.

When it comes to strategy for ownership of infrastructure, we have not changed our mind when -- we have a wholesale division that's focused on creating value from those infrastructure. And of course, value comes from monetizing them through Orange as a telecom operator as well as through other operators. From time to time, when we think there is value to be made by creating a NetCo like we are doing in Spain, we are doing it. You may have seen that we made an announcement with Proximus in Belgium as well for fiber. We have a FiberCo in France, as you know, in rural areas. We have a FiberCo as well in Poland. So this is key.

When it comes to TOTEM, TOTEM is very focused on increasing tenancy ratio. And of course, we've been -- you were rightfully asking about the market consolidation in France. We think it's more comfortable for us, I would say, to be able to play on both sides, both the infrastructure as well, of course, the service layer when there's an environment with consolidation. But again, we look at monetizing infrastructure separately from the OpCo, I would say, value creation, but we do think that having more added value by combining infrastructure and service makes a lot of sense.

Our next question is coming from Nick Lyall from Berenberg.

Just a question on the ARPOs in France again, please. Just the problem seems to be more the slowdown in convergence and in broadband. So could you give us a little bit on the outlook for that for the second half, please? The comps seem to get a lot tougher because of seasonality. So is there a risk that actually these ARPOs for convergence and broadband could go negative maybe in the second half of the year?

And just to come back to Ottavio's question here on Spain. On the Spanish joint venture with Zegona, is that something you want to do before you consider any changes in ownership for your Spanish assets as well, please?

Thank you. On the ARPO slowdown, I mean, as I've said before, I mean, no surprise because we knew that we had in Q1 some baseline effect, I would say, from the -- or some price increase effect, but we see overall the convergent ARPO at a very solid -- with a very solid dynamic and at a similar level and actually even slightly above what it was in Q1.

Convergence is 31% of our total Orange France customer, and it's really the growth engine for us in France as we've said. So no color. And definitely, I mean, no comment to make on the trajectory moving forward. As we've said, we see a flat to small positive growth for retail services in H2. And as I said, convergence remains the main growth engine for us.

When it comes to Spain, I don't have -- I mean, I don't have any comment to make. We look at the -- I mean, the FiberCo creates value, so it's not a prerequisite or not. It's the fact that it creates value on its own in the Spanish market, and that's why we are doing it.

When it comes to our shareholder agreement between shareholders of MASORANGE, we have a shareholder agreement. As you know, there is a lockup period of 2 years after closing. The teams and Meini here are very focused on delivering synergies, and you can see that from the H1 results of MASORANGE. Of course, at any point in time, we can have a discussion between shareholders, but there's a very clear process to -- towards an IPO, and that's what the teams are focused on.

So the FiberCo in itself, we look at it not as a prerequisite. We look at it as a value creation opportunity for us in Spain.

Before taking our last question, I'd like to remind journalists that your Q&A session will start at 10:30 a.m. Central European Time. Now let's please take our last question, which comes from Ondrej Cabejsek from UBS.

I'm just taking advantage of the queue emptying out before the allocated time. So I have two follow-up, please, if I may. So one on the wholesale side of things. So obviously, you -- as Andrew was saying, there's a deterioration in the top line. If I just look at the revenue loss year-over-year in 1H, that was close to EUR 150 million. So I'm just wondering, given that you, Christel, mentioned that, obviously, the guidance of EUR 100 million EBITDA loss for this year is intact, can you just give us a bit more color in terms of what's going on below the top line or maybe this is just a seasonality effect? But with the clear deterioration in the top line, already EUR 150 million loss on the top line year-to-date, what makes you confident that the EUR 100 million EBITDA loss is still something that's achievable this year? That's one question, please.

And then a second question, if I may also. Christel, you mentioned competition on the low end of the mobile market in France, but then how do you see the competitive situation in the convergence space where, obviously, your competitors also launched new products with more aggressive discounting towards the end of this year -- sorry, last year, of course? So how is that market evolving in your view?

Thanks, Ondrej. On the wholesale -- Q2 wholesale decline, it was expected. And again, it's in line with our CMD trajectory. So mainly related to copper evolution. In Q1, we were still benefiting from some civil work tariff increase that were implemented in March 2024. So that's probably what drives your analysis. But we are very -- overall, we are confident with this EUR 100 million EBITDA loss for this year. And again, I mean, this was the CMD minus EUR 200 million in '23, minus EUR 100 million in '24, minus EUR 100 million in '25. So those are obviously rounded number, but we're still confident with this trajectory.

When it comes to the convergence space, actually, we don't see the convergent market as a competitive market. Actually, we welcome the fact that our competitors are also adopting the same strategy as we do, which is focusing on convergence to reduce churn and to reduce the competition intensity, I would say, of the market. But at least, we do not see -- we have the best churn. Again, convergence is 5 points lower churn than broadband customers. So it works extremely well, and we are focused on this.

We see some tactical discounts or promotions to boost convergence. We are doing some. Our competitors are doing some. But even within the convergent portfolio, we have somehow an entry type of offers and more high-end type of offers. And so we are absolutely confident that the market is moving in the right direction from that standpoint.

That was our last question, so now I will hand the floor over to Christel Heydemann for any concluding remarks.

Thank you all for joining our H1 call. We are pleased with our solid H1 results, which once again demonstrate the soundness of our Lead the Future strategy and our drive on efficiency. We will continue to be focused on offering the best quality services to our customers, capitalizing on all our assets. For the rest of 2025, we are very confident to meet all our guidance including our upgraded EBITDAaL guidance to above 3%.

Thank you all, and I wish you a great summer.