Submarine telecom cables are one of the rare areas where France can boast of having almost complete industrial sovereignty. Apart from the fiber optic strands, of which the two largest suppliers in the world are the American Corning and the Japanese Sumitomo, all the rest of the chain is made in France. With its 160,000 square meter factory in Calais – the last industrial site on French soil of the former Alcatel – Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) is the leading European manufacturer of submarine telecom cables, able to compete in world level with SubCom (United States) and NEC (Japan). Adding the six ASN cable ships, manned by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, and the seven Orange Marine boats, the French flag is the most represented in the world. It accounts for about a quarter of the world fleet of these boats capable of laying cables several thousand kilometers long on the seabed and repairing them in the open sea.
The importance of this sector goes beyond the industrial framework. “After having neglected it for many years, States are seeking to reclaim the sub-sea domain taking into account the flows of information passing through it. This can go through public policy instruments, such as regulation or taxation, which is what the United States and China are doing. Industrial skills are the other way to shine”, explains Camille Morel, researcher in international relations associated with the Institute for Strategy and Defense Studies at Jean-Moulin-Lyon-III University and the Center for Strategic Navy Studies. French cable ships were thus integrated by a 2017 decree into the strategic fleet defined by the Defense Code in order to “to ensure in times of crisis the security of supplies of all kinds, means of communication, services and essential maritime works as well as to supplement the means of the armed forces”.
Always on alert
ASN and the French fleet of cable ships became even more important with the war in Ukraine. The September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines linking Russia to Germany reminded the world of the vulnerability of underwater infrastructure, including telecom cables. While no incidents have been reported since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the risk cannot be ruled out. Since the 1898 Spanish-American War in Cuba, undersea telegraph and telephone links have almost always been subject to deliberate cuts during world conflicts. Hence Emmanuel Macron’s request, in April 2022, to increase surveillance of the cables connecting France to the rest of the world. Thanks to its maritime facades, France enjoys a strategic position. It is the most connected country in Europe: twenty-three lines, including six transatlantic cables, leave and arrive in France.
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