The Orange CEO details his group's deconfinement strategy. Stéphane Richard returns to the precautionary measures put in place and deplores the fact that the government has made the choice to prohibit companies from carrying out covid-19 screening tests, for employees who wish to do so. Orange is also participating in the StopCovid Project, which aims to set up a data tracking application.
Le Figaro.- Will all Orange stores be open on May 11?
Stéphane Richard.- To open stores, our employees and our customers must have the highest level of guarantees. Our employees will have all the necessary protective equipment (masks, hydroalcoholic gel, disinfectant wipes, plexiglass visors ...). We will also strengthen cleaning, rearrange spaces and work organization to make social distancing possible and manage the arrival of customers differently, for example by making an appointment.
We have a plan to reopen our 630 stores in France, which will span three weeks. The first week, the return of employees will be on a voluntary basis; I know the Orange employees, they will be there.
What about other sites?
In accordance with government directives, at least until June 2, all employees who can telework must telework. Only those who cannot work remotely (technicians, boutique advisers, etc.) will work on site or in the field. Besides, for our technicians, this will not be a recovery since they never stopped working during the crisis.
We will then reopen all the sites, but the return to the office will be done in rotation and very gradually. Telework will remain widely applied in the company until the start of the school year, both for health reasons and due to transport problems. All our sites will be equipped with gels, masks, with a single access point from the outside and car parks. We will avoid groupings and will respect the rule of 4 square meters per person.
Do you want to set up tests?
Like many companies, we want to offer tests to our employees because we believe we can help deconfinement by increasing screening capacities. We are willing to perform virological and serological tests. Especially since in one of the first prescriptions for a state of health emergency, occupational medicine was authorized to organize these tests. We were therefore surprised by the announcement made on Sunday, May 3, prohibiting companies from carrying out tests. I am not sure I understand the reasons for this ban because screening is one of the determining elements of deconfinement. We are in any case ready to participate in the national effort, by mobilizing our occupational health service (nearly a hundred doctors), we had placed orders for testing equipment and mini laboratories for virological tests. Everything is stopped ... Now we are awaiting instructions from the health authorities. If we can't, we won't.
Did you want to make the tests mandatory?
Not at all! The tests are first of all an additional security for our employees who think they have symptoms or have been in contact with sick people. There has never been any question of systematically testing all employees, or making it mandatory. We want to respond to individual situations, for people who are sick or who are just worried. We would have respected strict confidentiality of the results, of which only the occupational doctor and the employee would have knowledge.
I appeal to health authorities and government, screening is part of the health arsenal to get out of this crisis, and companies can help.
What about the deployment of fiber?
The deployment of fiber is the largest construction site in France and, like all construction sites, it is unfortunately almost at a standstill. In this critical period, we had to prioritize our interventions on network maintenance. We hope to resume deployments as soon as possible, especially in moderately dense and rural areas (Amii and RIP). But in what calendar and at what pace, we do not yet know. Everyone wants to restart quickly: the subcontractors, whom we supported during the crisis, and the operators are the weapon with the foot.
Regarding connections to Orange customers: around 150,000 have subscribed to a fiber offer and have not been connected due to confinement. Operations have started to resume for three weeks already. During containment, around 70,000 fiber connections were made. One of our priorities is to increase the number of daily connections. They fell to 1000 per day at the start of the crisis and are currently at 3000 per day. Our goal is to quickly return to 6000, which was our cruising speed before the crisis.
Orange is part of the StopCovid project. The application is not ready for deconfinement. What do you think of its usefulness?
All European countries, except Belgium, have implemented or are working on a contact tracking application. Nobody says it is a quick fix, but it can be one of the effective tools to fight against this pandemic and it would be a shame to deprive it! In France there will be a vote in Parliament. Everything concerning the respect of privacy will be investigated in a very thorough manner, under the supervision of the CNIL. Health and medical circles are in favor of such an application. On this subject, public debate is unfortunately too often passionate and poorly documented. If someone fears for the respect of his private life, he can not use the application, deactivate it, deactivate Bluetooth or even leave without his smartphone! It is an object over which we have total control.