The Government aims to boost public initiative networks to facilitate full fibre for everyone by 2025.
Digital at the heart of economic recovery: On 3 September 2020, the French Government unveiled its recovery plan for the economy following the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the key pillars of the plan, which is worth a total €100bn, is to put digital at the heart of social and economic growth, with €7bn allocated to investment programmes across a number of sectors (cybersecurity, cloud, quantum computing and AI, digital healthcare).
A further €240m is allocated to fibre: As part of the digital strategy, the Government is adding €240m for the achievement of its 100% full-fibre target by 2025. The Government had already announced this new target in February 2020, considering that the 2020 objective to have at least 30Mbps for all households is on track to be met, and had already allocated €280m to help achieve it.
The 2025 target is realistic: Starting from 2021, the new funds will be allocated to public initiative fibre networks, which are mainly deployed in rural areas where private operators would have little incentive to invest. Full fibre coverage was below 50% of households at the end of 2019, but it grew by more than 10% compared to the previous year, meaning that France could well achieve the target at the current rate of deployment.
