Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, welcome to this Salle Pleyel for our combined annual meeting. It's an honor for me to Chair your company's annual general meeting. It's a key annual event in the life of your company. It's also a special opportunity for myself, your CEO, and your Board of Directors to present our achievements, our plans, and of course, to answer your questions. The Board of Directors, which met just prior to this meeting, has finalized the answers to the 68 written questions submitted to us.
These questions come from the Forum []Non-English content] 15 questions; the Orange International Employee Stock Ownership, one question; from Mr. Philippe Petit, individual shareholder, 10 questions; from Mr. Alain Canel, individual shareholder, two questions. From Philtrust, one question. From CFE-CGC Orange, 39 questions. As permitted by the commercial code and to prioritize time for dialogue with you who are present today, I invite you to review them on the dedicated pages, dedicated to the General Meeting on the orange.com website.
I'd like to provide you with some legal information. Regarding the conduct of this combined General Meeting in accordance with the law in Article 21 of Orange's Articles of Association, I will preside over this meeting which is being held on first call. The preliminary notice of the meeting was published in the BALO on February 27th, 2026, and the notice of the meeting was published in the BALO on April 24th, as well as in a legal notice publication on the website of the newspaper Les Echos . All has therefore been duly published. The quorum is now reached for the ordinary and extraordinary parts of the General Meeting.
The provisional quorum is 82.54%, to my knowledge. We will communicate the final quorum during the meeting. I would like to let you know that we are expecting it to be much higher than last year's and much higher than most of the CAC 40 companies. And it shows that you, as institutionals and individual shareholders, it shows how interested you are in the life of your company. Also shows how much trust in the future is important. I will have the opportunity to talk about this when I talk about my discussions with the investors.
I hereby declare this General Meeting open. I propose that we elect the presiding offices. The two shareholders with the largest number of votes are the French government and Bpifrance Participations. The public sector, mindful of the diversity of representation within this general meeting, has agreed that the Orange Actions employee stock ownership fund—Orange is the third largest shareholder after the state and Bpifrance Participations—will serve as scrutineer in its place.
I'm going to call Mr. Boris Hauptmann as scrutineer from the [Non-English content] and for Orange Actions, Mrs. Nadia Zak-Calvet, Chair of its Supervisory Board. I propose that they appoint Nicolas Guérin, Secretary General and Secretary of the Board of Directors, as Secretary of the meeting. Joining me on stage are Christel Heydemann, whom you're very familiar with, our Chief Executive Officer, Laurent Martinez, Chief Financial Officer, Nicolas Guérin, Group General Secretary and Secretary 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 and CSR Committee is chaired by Anne-Gabrielle Heilbronner, the Audit Committee chaired by Gilles Grapinet, and the Strategy and Technology Committee chaired by Frédéric Sanchez. These three Directors are Independent Directors, as a reminder.
The Board of Directors once again in 2025 carried tireless work. I will discuss this in detail a bit later. First of all, I would like to talk about the stock market developments since Mrs. Heydemann took office in April 2022. EUR 18.20, that's what I have in my document. I think it's up and it's at EUR 18.70 now. +66% of the stock price. If you include all of the dividends reinvested, it 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 sound the strategic directions set by senior management are which were approved by the Board of Directors.
I see three main reasons for this growth, which benefits all of you, individual and institutional shareholders of Orange, but also the Orange employee shareholders. The first reason, in my view, is the strong performance in 2025, which made it possible to raise the annual EBITDA target. Then there was also the positive reception of the messages from last February's investor meeting and the new Trust the Future strategic plan.
Finally, there's the prospect of a potential consolidation of the French market. The telecom sector's industry has been 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 sovereignty without strong operators that can invest in new technology and networks. We are starting to hear this message, and our CEO will talk more about this later on.
I would like to seize this opportunity to share my vision of the group's strategic directions implemented in recent years, 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 involving consolidating physical infrastructure, particularly mobile infrastructure, giving rise, for example, to TowerCo, such as TOTEM.
At Orange, m ost telecom operators eventually sold all or part of this infrastructure to finance the essential investments required to handle the exponential growth in network traffic. The need for massive investment is a catch-22 for operators, as one of the ratios closely crystallized by the market is the ratio of capital expenditures to revenue. Some investors would like this to decrease. It stands at 15.4% in 2025, representing EUR 6.2 billion.
On the other hand, Orange must continue to invest to prepare for the future because your company's business is a long-term endeavor. A striking example of this is the group's leadership in fiber, with almost 100 million households connectable to FTTH worldwide. The FTTH access base has reached 15.4 million connections. You see how high the 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. This 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 at the heart of Orange's business with a diversified and balanced portfolio of operations that help face an unstable geopolitical landscape.
The MEA region is maintaining its 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 4G and 5G, fiber, and Orange Money are driving performance in this area. We remain vigilant regarding the arrival of satellite technology and the rise of fintechs.
The cybersecurity market, which is not limited to large companies only, continues to evolve rapidly. Both SMEs and individual consumers are growth relays in spite of the emergence of newcomers. Orange Cyberdefense stands a strong chance in this highly competitive market. These strategic decisions have allowed Orange 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 geopolitical environment.
As of December 31, 2025, employee shareholders, to mention only them, held nearly 8% of Orange's capital and 12.35% of the voting rights. This represents an asset base of nearly EUR 3.8 billion from which Orange employees, active employees, working employees, or retired employees have been able to benefit. This is value created for shareholders. Beyond these figures, Orange remains committed to the stable, long-term sharing of value between shareholders and employees.
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, We firmly believe in the beneficial effects of the consolidation initiatives that have already taken place on Orange's initiative. I'm thinking of Romania, Belgium, but especially Spain, where Orange has become the leading operator in terms of customer numbers with MasOrange.
The reconsolidation of MasOrange, which is expected to take place within the next few days, will make Spain, 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. It 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 2025-2026, 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.
Anne-Gabrielle will come back on in her presentation. On April 17th, a 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. I can already reassure the authorities responsible for competition and regulation, if this project succeeds, competition amongst players in France will remain stronger. The stances of telecom regulators remain difficult to understand in the light of the sector's current challenges. The facts are there, accurate. Digital Europe is lagging behind China and the U.S. Not a day goes by without us hearing about the primacy and independence of European sovereignty and competitiveness. Here again, the path ahead is clear.
We're going towards harmonization of the regulations in Europe, favoring those who invest rather than those who take advantage from others' investments. The European Commission's recent publication in its EU guidelines on mergers and acquisitions, which follows on from the observations I mentioned, signals a shift 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's draft Digital Networks Act, which was intended to modernize the telecoms regulatory framework by streamlining it and harmonizing it remains excessively complicated. How could this 372-page-long document possibly simplify anything? The same trend can be observed in other industries, like the Women on Boards Directive aiming at introducing greater gender diversity on corporate boards.
It ultimately proves extremely complicated for companies to implement. There are unfortunately too many examples of that. Beyond intentions, regulation must constantly question its applicability and must evolve alongside the market to support the stakeholders involved. It must take into account the efforts carried out, the results achieved, and the imbalances 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 a 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.
In this area, Orange already has a solid foundation, the internal AI platform called Genie 2, which enabled us to develop an offering for customers under the name of Live Intelligence. This app is strongly used illustrates the Group's internal commitment and the maturity of its AI ecosystem. As this technology spreads throughout the company, Orange will need to adapt with the necessary at speed while complying with its social contract.
This is the challenge your CEO will have to take up. Another disruptive issue being closely watched by your Board of Directors is the rollout of large satellite constellations. The threat posed by Starlink is being closely monitored and anticipated by your company's teams, particularly in Africa. Even though fiber provides a higher connectivity reliability compared to satellite technology. Orange aims to achieve 85% of 4G coverage even in the most remote areas, and 5G is already making headway.
To continue expanding and strengthening coverage in rural areas, 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 will have to decide on the allocation of the frequencies dedicated to them. 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 switchover to fiber, which embeds a deep change in the business model that we have. What's at stake here in the switchover will have an impact which is appraised at EUR 1 billion between 2025 and 2030. 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 a modernization program which aims at reducing carbon footprint and asset protection. 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 cable. What's at stake is to protect our assets against thefts, the number of which has increased over the recent years. Apart from these industrial and financial challenges, we'll have to support migration from copper to fiber for our clients, which is what Orange has started doing. Also, we'll have to acquire new clients.
We'll have to secure the migration of sensitive access and guarantee continuity of service. I'd like to seize this opportunity to congratulate Jérôme Hénique and the Orange France teams for the colossal work they put in, which was essential for our future. Now, very quickly, I'll 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. We are more a digital services company than a telco. The Board of Directors is convinced I'm confident that this reconfiguration that started thanks to Aliette Mousnier-Lompré and with the support of Christel Heydemann will bear fruit.
As is the case each year, I've discussed with the main shareholders that we have, plus the employee representatives or the employee shareholders and also what we call the CCA, Orange Shareholder Advisory Committee. I also make sure that regularly we have conversations with these shareholders. I must say that positive dialogue that we've had with the employee share ownership plan called Orange Action has led your Board of Directors to adapt one of its draft resolutions by aligning it on a resolution put forward by this plan.
To summarize, the investors whom 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 mechanisms for the senior managers at Orange is correct. We've had to shed light on two specific topics because these typical to the Orange case or business. First one is the nomination of Independent Directors representing employee shareholders on the Board.
After two years of litigation repeatedly by a trade union that justice has dismissed, a recent ruling or adjustment of the Court of Appeal of Versailles will allow us and will allow you to vote on the nomination for this the position of Mrs. Nadia Zak-Calvet as an incumbent and Mr. Marc [Fenwick] as deputy. If ratified, we will put an end to a situation which I 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 three Directors representing employees on the Board. I was talking about this a little while ago. Anne-Gabrielle Heilbronner will give you all the details.
Regretfully, or it is with regret rather, that the Board has had to put forward three 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 three men representing employees on the Board. The law is such that we have just one choice to be compliant with the gender balance objective. Therefore, the general meeting can revoke one of these three elected representatives so that we would have as an acting deputy a woman who would be appointed as Director.
Finally, as you probably know, the Board, as 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 2022 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. As far as I'm concerned, I'd like to also acknowledge the quality of Christel Heydemann, your CEO. During these four years, I've seen how Orange can be proud of having at 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 Christel, the smoothness of the communication flow and her efficiency and how efficient she is. Now, this duo is essential if it combines transparency, dialogue, and strategic fit. We've worked in this manner on the basis of trust and for the interest of Orange. Dear shareholders, my term of office or mandate as Director will end at the end of this General Meeting. If you still trust me, I'll still be a member of the Board. Given the current drafting of our articles of association, I can't be the Chairman any longer.
This is why the Chair of the CGRSE has set up an ad hoc committee to prepare my succession for this term of office or mandate. Anne-Gabrielle, of course, will give you all the details. For the time being, I can confirm that the choice presented to the Board is the best possible option. I think it is positive for many reasons. Frédéric Sanchez is an Independent Director and has been since 2020 and is heading the Strategy and 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. I must insist on the fact that this appointment is a premiere, a first for Orange. This is the result of in-house work, which was dense and minute. For the very first time, within the members of your Board, we've managed 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.
[Non-English content] Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, ladies, gentlemen, dear shareholders. Now, I'll be talking you through the work done by your board and CGRSE during 2025, as you probably know. The role of your Board of Directors is to rule on all the decisions linked to the key 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. The 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 six times, and the CST for technology five times.
This is more than what we have in the SBF 120, where usually, as an average, we have 9.2 meetings a year. Two ad hoc committees were set up to follow the negotiations in Spain and France, on the one hand, and to prepare the renewal of our governance On the second hand, all in all, more or less 20 meetings of these ad hoc committees were focusing on these topics. In addition to this, we had a two day strategic seminar and we traveled to Africa.
This really shows that all of our directors are here to serve Orange. The attendance-- collective attendance level is high, 96.3%. There's a high number of Directors who are still in employment. Our average is above that of our peers. This number doesn't take into account the ad hoc committees, because otherwise the result would 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 decisions, 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 on average is five years.
We've also taken part in the meetings organized with the managers and during annual seminars. Finally, and that's something very important, the quality of the work done by the Chair and the CEO. This is something they underscored. I'd like to perhaps highlight the most salient events during fiscal 2025. 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 MasOrange 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 visited Dakar to meet our teams and to better understand the challenges over there. The Board also focused in 2025 on the telco situation in France. Orange, Bouygues Telecom, and Iliad announced on the April 17th exclusive negotiations that would start with Altice France so as to acquire SFR. Now, to talk about our composition, the Board of Directors has paid special attention to the appointment of the director who's 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. On the March 26th, 2026, the Court of Appeal ruled out the decisions of the commercial tribunals. Today, your Board will put an end to years of vacancy, and you will have to be voting on a draft resolution.
As a Director representing the employee shareholders, you will vote on the following name, Mrs. Nadia Zak-Calvet, and the replacement or deputy will be [Marc Fenwick]. 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 three seats that have been earmarked for personnel representatives on the board. Their term of office will last four years. Given the fact that we'll have to renew these mandates, there were elections that were held on November 25th. The results are as follows. There was one seat for the group of employees and technicians. Mr. Pierre Chaussoneaux was elected. There were two seats available for the equivalent of managers, in French, cadres. Mr. Vincent Gimeno, whose list came first, was elected. As well as Mr. Sébastien Crozier, whose list came in a second position.
There's a new measure aiming at better gender diversity, which has to be enforced as of January 1st, 2026. When there are three seats for the employees, which is the case in Orange, one of the seats at least has to be in the hands, if I can say, of a man or a woman. The Governance and Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility Committee that I Chair has asked the general manager of Orange to organize a consultation with people who represent the employees, to encourage them to arrive at an agreement to have better gender diversity before June 30th, 2026 to be compliant with the law.
None of them wanted to step down and to give the seat to the next woman on the list on the lists 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 will be scrutinized under resolutions 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 would occur again.
This will be voted upon when we reach Resolution Number 14. To be consistent with the Board of Directors, to stick 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 numbered 20 and 21, and that you should vote in favor of endorsing Resolution number 22, which has to do with the group called Cadres, that is managers, that was the second list after the elections.
Finally, to put an end on 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 was said before, Mr. Aschenbroich's 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 four years.
Jacques, 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 understand the strategic challenges for Orange, the way you work as well, and how, with you, the board has functioned in a better way. Your term of office is coming to an end, it's been successful in terms of governance. It is with regret that we can say that unfortunately we couldn't extend your mandate due to an age limit. The question is the criterion that we use today.
Mainly when a company is going through a massive strategic transformation, which is the case for our group. The Chairman and the CEO are a key duo for these programs to succeed. I must say that Jacques Aschenbroich and Christel Heydemann did an incredible job. Their duo was very efficient and they were very much involved. Within the framework of the end of the mandate as early as July 2025, the CGRSE decided to set up an ad hoc committee to work on the succession plan.
The succession plan for the top managers is something extremely important for our group. Our governance and CSR committee make sure that this is done in a confidential manner. This is the case for the Chairman, the CEO, the Directors, all the members of the management of Orange. Therefore, we've managed to appoint Jérôme Hénique as CEO of Orange France to replace Jean-François Fallacher.
The ad hoc committee that was set up focused on the profile that was looked for and considered a panel of different people who could match this profile and then decided to interview some of them. Amongst the criteria were mainly having experience in company management and governance, understanding properly the international context and the French 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 CGRSE to make the following decision March 2026. First of all, to appoint Mr. Frédéric Sanchez as a Chairman of the Board. Frédéric has been an Independent Director of Orange since 2020, current Chairman of the Strategy and Technology Committee. He has good knowledge of Orange matters and the industry in general. He would take office right after the General Assembly. With Frédéric Sanchez, we are really continuing the work I mentioned earlier.
The Board decided to suggest a renewal of Mr. Aschenbroich's 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. The Board decided upon suggestion from the Governance Committee and the CSR Committee to suggest renewing the term of office of Mrs. Valérie Beaulieu, considering her work and her dedication to the work of the Board. 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 compensation, if you're still listening, the CGRSE has examined the goal propositions and the way the compensation of the CEO 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 was a successful plan. 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. Renewal of the long-term incentive plan, LTIP, is suggested. It will be contingent upon the achievement of financial and non-financial 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, this is the subject of Resolution Number 15.
In the course of its annual review, the Board also considered the updating of all 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. Lastly, I would like to really congratulate your Directors for the great work they've carried out and the leadership of the Chairman, Jacques Aschenbroich, whom I would like to once again thank for everything he's done for Orange and the board. I would like to thank you for your attention. [Non-English content]
[Non-English content] Gabrielle, thank you. Gabrielle, I would like now to give Laurent Martinez the floor. 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 strengthened 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 successful Lead the Future was.
This 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 attract 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 2025 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 seven European countries, reaching nearly 99% of the population, and in its 17 countries in Africa and the Middle East. 5G is available in our seven European countries and in seven 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 +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 6% 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 up more than 12%. 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 one year. In Europe, in our six countries, Poland, Belgium, Romania, Slovakia, Moldova, and Luxembourg, revenue has grown by more than 2%, driven by the success of our converged offerings.
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% over the year. In terms of profitability, it is improving, supported by our ongoing efficiency efforts.
EBITDA has reached EUR 12.5 billion, + 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%, 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 net savings over three years, supporting a 0.9% increase in our EBITDA margin.
Let's now move on to the net income of the company at EUR 1.1 billion. That's down from EUR 2.9 billion in 2024 due to three non-recurring effects. First, the agreement on employee deployment and carrier management in France. Secondly, loss of value on Orange business operations. Lastly, the start of the operational phase of the copper line phasing out in France. The net adjusted income for these items is now EUR 3.1 billion for 2025.
This corresponds to adjusted net income per share of EUR 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, an 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 2024 EUR 125 million.
As of December 31st, 2025, the group's net financial debt stood at EUR 22.5 billion, and the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio remained stable year-on-year at 1.8x, as you know, it's one of the strongest ratio in the industry, fully in line with our target of a leverage ratio around 2x in the medium term. Lenders' confidence was confirmed by the successful bond issuance totaling $5 billion in late 2025 and $6 billion in early 2026 as part of the MasOrange reconsolidation 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 2025 strengthened 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 2025 fiscal year, with an interim payment of EUR 0.30 per share paid on December 4th and the balance of EUR 0.45 on June 15th. 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 our growth.
The fourth quarter of 2025 was marked by the signing of a binding agreement with Lorca to acquire the entirety of MasOrange. Once the transaction is finalized in the second half of 2026, Spain will become our second largest market in Europe and will benefit from MasOrange's value creation at 100%. Also through MasOrange, we launched Spain's leading fiber provider, Premium Fiber, at the end of the year in partnership with the Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund and Vodafone Spain.
It's thanks to this very sturdy base that we've presented ambitious 2026 financial targets. EBITDA growth of over 3%. This target initially was set at around 3%, it was raised upon the release of our first quarter results. A e CapEx over revenue ratio of approximately 15%. An organic cash flow reaching about EUR 4 million. A debt net over EBITDA ratio of around double in the medium term. We're also planning to increase the dividend to EUR 0.79 per share for 2026.
The group confirms these targets in the event of the reconsolidation of MasOrange with an accretive 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. 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.
[Non-English content] Laurent. Thank you, Laurent. Let's now welcome Christophe Patrier, who is going to present the auditor's report.
[Non-English content] ladies and gentlemen shareholders, I have the pleasure to present on behalf of the Board of statutory auditors, KPMG and Deloitte, the reports we've prepared for you for the fiscal year 2025. The reports submitted for your approval cover the annual and consolidated financial statements, regulated agreements and resolutions regarding capital transactions. Instructions.
They've 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 certify that the annual and consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended on December 31st, 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 the 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.
Th e 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 tests. Regarding the fourth resolution of your general meeting, we've 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's approval. Furthermore, we inform you that an agreement entered into force during the 2023 fiscal year, which had already been approved after the 2025 fiscal year. In connection with the special session of the meeting, we've issued three reports regarding resolutions authorizing 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 officers and certain employees of the Orange Group pursuant to the 15th Resolution. A report on the delegation of authority regarding the issuance of shares or complex securities reserved for participants of company savings plans under the 16th 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 Action Corporate Investment Funds, a constitutional amendment to the 15th resolution. 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.
[Non-English content] Patrier.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Patrier. Now we'll listen to Christel Heydemann, your CEO.
L adies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good afternoon one and all here at Salle Pleyel, or for those who are following us at a distance. I'm very happy to be here during 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, you've supported the activities of your group. 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 Mr. Jacques Aschenbroich. 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 involved. You'd look at things from a height. This has been very precious for our company in a period that has gone through deep transformation.
This duo that is ours, that we've had over the past four years, has been essential in terms of stability, trust, and the correct functioning of our governance. The quality of our discussions that were always direct, that were fluid and demanding, and the careful preparation of the Board meetings have contributed to the quality of our functioning as a 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, you've always been here to serve the company. Thanks to these skills, I must say that working with you was something very precious for me. Thank you very much, dear Jacques. 2025 was a really good vintage for Orange. This is the end of our strategic plan called Lead the Future. It was launched in 2022.
Thanks to this plan, Orange has strengthened its position as a leader in the telco business in Europe and on all of our markets. We're the number two telco operator in Europe, far before the other competitors in terms of revenue, but also number of clients. Our brand is strong and seen as strong because we're always rated number two if you look at about all the telcos in the world. Our leadership in the deployment of fiber is undisputed, with 100 million homes that can be connected to fibers. We made strong strategic choices.
As was said before, amongst those, the choice to operate our 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 MEA area and Africa, that is the Middle East and Africa, is the growth engine of the company, and we've had a two 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 up MasOrange, the second-biggest operator in the country. We're the most active operator in terms of industrial consolidation. Our strategic vision is confirmed when you look at our solid results. Orange today is a major player in the world. Year in, year out, we strengthen our positions, our leading positions on the main markets.
We are stronger, but also we have a simpler group. We've refocused our business on our core business as an operator. We've reviewed and simplified our in-house processes. 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're demanding and the local agility of our local businesses that means we're fast in executing.
We've deeply changed our B2B activities and we're accelerating in cybersecurity in a digital context that's changing with new risks. 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. I'm 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. 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.
This leads us to asking essential questions such as ethics, security, and the controlled data. With GenAI, AI, we have an increased level of risk of manipulation, deepfakes, usurpation of identity, cyberattacks, where security is something essential for us and our children. Bruno Zerbib, 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 as far as we 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 that's more and more fragmented, our diversity is our wealth, and our business model is multilocal, and this is our strength. My third belief is that Europe is not missing out on either talent or capital. What we miss is a good regulatory framework that would allow for consolidation, which is necessary in the telco business.
Over the past 20 years, the market has been too fragmented. We have hyper-competition. The European operators have been weakened. This has therefore slowed us 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 organized and ready to drive as much value that it can with the single market by focusing on simplification and consolidation, by reviewing the consolidation rules so that we would have more M&As.
This is essential, as well as the implementation of the recommendations of the Mario Draghi 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 and to facilitate communication. This link based on human beings is at 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 2026. This is anchored in strong beliefs and is based on the successes of our past plan. We have three strategic ambitions. We want to be close to our clients. We want to grow through innovation. 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 three 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. We'll be using the main strengths of our group, that is the clout of our brand, the size of our customer basis, and the quality of our networks. Based on that, we'll speed up the development of new offerings for the general public on the basis of safety at home, transfer of money that will be secured, and also the protection of the youngest. We're also investing in trusted offerings for companies on the cloud, also AI. Cybersecurity is therefore key in this strategy.
Orange Cyberdefense today is the number one 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 the youth. 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 networks is at the heart of the telco business, and their resilience is our number one priority. To make sure that we're really resilient, we have major programs that aim at 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 of 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. 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. What's at stake, rather, EUR 600 million additional euros in terms of additional value by 2028. 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. Therefore, we can buy 100% of MasOrange. This transaction will be over before the end of the quarter. Our project in France is to consolidate our case on the SFR dossier.
Since April 17th, we've been negotiating exclusively with the Groupe Altice France. To acquire SFR with Bouygues Telecom and Groupe Iliad Free. With this, we'll be able to consolidate the good monitoring of strategic infrastructures in France. We'll strengthen our investments in resilience of high-throughput networks and cybersecurity, also innovation and new technologies such as AI.
We'll 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 at a bit more than 3% between 2025 and 2028, 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, the positioning of the group before 2028. Our solid results are due to a collective endeavor. We have 123,500 people who work for us. They are the ones thanks to which we've succeeded.
Their commitment is still strong in 2025. They still trust the group. Their trust level has gone up seven 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 essential. 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 who've done that already. More than 80,000 people have been trained in AI at Orange. 100,000 use our own GenAI tools. This really shows that our training program works well and that we're fully committed to make sure that the group changes.
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. 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 zero in 2040. That is 10 years ahead of the recommendations for other industrial players. We will decarbonize the energy business in Africa and the Middle East. Thanks to what we've done, we've been using more solar power, up to a level of 30%, and we'd like to reach 60% in 2030.
We have also been recycling our mobile telephones. For Scope three, 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 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 two pillars. First, to protect usages and digital inclusion. We are trusted partner and Orange before 2030 will have offerings that will move towards more responsible use of digital technology such as Safer Phone or CyberSecure launched in France last year.
Our priorities vary depending on the geographies, we have one 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. 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 Bruno Zerbib, I'd like to show 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 a topic that has quickly become central to our professional and personal lives: artificial intelligence. At Orange, artificial intelligence is nothing new. It's a true strategic strength forged by more than 30 years of investment in research. With several hundreds of researchers dedicated to building in-depth expertise in fields 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, a milestone was 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 profoundly transforming our businesses, organizations, and the way we work.
A new phase is already beginning with the emergence of agent-based AI. AI is now capable of understanding a request, planning multiple actions, executing them more autonomously. 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 answer at Orange. We want trustworthy AI that drives progress, and we design it with a focus on co-intelligence, AI that doesn't replace human beings but that helps them make better decisions, take better action, and do their jobs better.
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 a 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, a legal field, a fight against fraud. Thanks to AI, we can analyze a great number of data, we can spot suspicious activities, and we can intervene more swiftly.
The first analyses show how much productivity gains we have estimated at around 20%-30% depending on the business. The impact of AI is also very visible in our relationship with customers. It makes our journeys smoother. In our contact centers, we want to reach 70% of resolution thanks to AI, by the first contact. This is part and parcel of a strategic plan. Charlie, the social 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 helps to detect flaws and reduce repair times.
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 to needs and incidents. This dynamic also fuels the offer we have for companies. We develop solutions in-house. We try them in-house. We have a whole environment that has evolved to include the best progresses, including the most recent intelligent sovereign agent AIs.
We have a clear and sustainable approach, that approach lies on three principles: controlled, inclusive AI that uses trustworthy schemes. Responsibility is at the heart of our approach, Orange is one of the pioneers is in this field. We have an external ethics committee. We have also ethics advisors, contact persons in each country to give a framework to our uses. Ethics must be present from the outset. This goes hand in hand with the idea of control. AI opens several remarkable prospects. 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 Orange has been carrying out work on African languages and has worked with Meta and OpenAI to help take into consideration languages like Wolof and Pulaar. We also have an avatar in sign languages that is used. We have audio description services during sports and cultural events, or the deduction of distress signals in real time. Lastly, trust in AI lies on sturdy infrastructure that can protect data and be in line with resilience and sovereignty demands.
The boom of agent AI reinforces this. We have systems that are capable of making decisions on their own. There are risks also of cyber threats that are linked to that. It is in this context that the Orange Cyberdefense expertise will be key to secure AI uses and to protect our infrastructures. What counts at the end of the day is not technology per se. It is what helps us better understand, decide, create, and act. At Orange, we want to move in this direction ambitiously, responsibly, and with a strong belief to have AI at the service of a useful and shared progress. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Bruno. Thank you, Christel. It is now time for us to open via Q&A session. Of course, everyone here in the room can ask questions, but those following this meeting remotely can also send their questions. Mrs. Heydemann, your 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. We want to hear as many people as possible, as many questions as possible. Before we start, let me remind you that.
We have an area dedicated to technical commercial issues or after-sales matters in the Salle Pleyel hallway, the reception area. Don't hesitate to reach out to our Orange teams. They are there for you and to answer any questions you may have. Let's start with the first question. Question number 1.
[Non-English content ] Could you tell us what the weak link of the plan is should the international environment become more adverse?
Christel?
Well, it's true. We live in an international atmosphere that is not adverse, but that is complex. We reminded that. We have a multi-local model, so by nature, our teams in the field are used to managing complicated situations. Our business, as our results show, is highly resilient in a macroeconomic environment that is under pressure. Of course, we live in an environment that is impacted by macroeconomy.
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, quite impacted by the environment in which we live. Of course, we are faced with risks. The work we're doing and the work of the board is also to make sure that there is a balance. Today, even though we are in a very complicated geopolitical period, our results are sturdy, and our guidance level has even gone up.
Thank you. Next question, please.
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, Christel's presentation, I think that this was clear. We have a lot of work to do. A lot has been done already, as Gabriel reminded us, and as I said in my presentation, considerable work has been done to coordinate the three operators who submitted an offer on SFR and Altice. It took 18 months, sorry, of work to be aligned. It's quite unusual to have such a consortium to buy a competitor. Work has been done already. Some work is yet to be done. The next stage is clearly France. Third question.
Bonjour. Hello, [Jean-Pierre Cecchelli]. I'm an individual shareholder. Congratulations for this past performance. Congratulations. You know, in France, we like Poulidor. We are ranking second. This is good. At a personal level, unfortunately, I've often been frustrated with having only the silver medal and not the gold medal. How can we get that gold medal?
Well, in order to be first and get that gold medal, we have to be first on all of the markets on which we operate. That goes back to consolidation. We are number two in France, the number two operator, and we want to remain number two. In France, the consolidation operations with MasOrange and MASMOVIL puts us at a number one position in terms of clients, and we have strong growth prospects. Here we're dealing with national telco markets. We could talk about the Europe of telcos. That's not your question.
Deutsche Telekom is first today in Europe, they're very strong because they also operate on the American market. As part of our strategy, as you will have noticed, we haven't talked about the U.S. We operate in Europe, in Africa, we do have growth prospects in Europe and in Africa. We're going to keep striving to reduce the gap with the number one. You're right to say, at Orange, we're not playing to be number two.
Thank you. Question number 4.
Hello, Chairman. Hello, CEO. Dear CEO, I'm an individual shareholder also. I have a question on AI. You mentioned AI on several occasions. If we consider AI as suggested by NVIDIA, for instance, we have several prospects. We have agentic AI, GenAI, and physical AI robots. I'd like to know what Orange's position is on those three different types of AI, especially on cyber AI.
We've been talking about agent AI for a few months, especially since 2025. It's really the heart of the matter. This raises many issues and questions, especially in terms of security. It's not easy to implement at organization level. We have pilots on which we're working. We see that agent AI helps in terms of productivity without raising too many issues in terms of security. We have to put in place controlled environments to do this. This is something we're working on.
We're observing that everyone is learning by doing right now. A company such as Orange, which is a big company and where trust is so important, it has to be careful. When it comes to cybersecurity, of course, agent AIs also helps hackers find loopholes and weaknesses in the system, and that's not specific to Orange. It's for all companies, all administrations worldwide. We see that this is a subject that is raising awareness at international level. Technology is quite powerful, but we are still lacking organization to be completely in control of the situation. The trustworthy and ethical environment are important to take into account also. That's, of course, especially true for cybersecurity at Orange.
Another question.
Bonjour. Hello, Jean-Denis, individual shareholder. I have a question. Page 144 of the annual report, you mentioned the cloud, and you say that cloud services have been going down 8% over a year. Can you tell us if that means you're not doing too well when it comes to the cloud. Regarding the Altice buyback project, the competition authority that will consider the matter will be either French or European. Do you have a preference? I think there's a French authority that wishes this to happen before the formal buyback of Spain. Thank you.
Regarding the cloud activity, you've read the report well. The decrease in our business, in our cloud business, is due to the fact we had to stop a business line that was Flexible Engine. We decommissioned it and we are currently migrating towards a new solution. As a result, the portfolio has been readjusted. Trusted Cloud. On the sustainable cloud offers, we are still growing.
You're right to say that the streamlining of our portfolio has had an impact on this line of business in 2025. Turning to competition authority, I have no preference. We will have one French European Competition Authority, it's important to have only one because we're talking about a matter that's quite complicated. We'll have to work with the appointed authority, whatever it is. We have no preference, whether France or Europe.
Thank you. Next question.
Patrick Hernand. I've been an individual shareholder for six years. Chairman, CEO, your colleague from Orange Business declared recently that the group wanted to become a global leader for digital trust solutions, an undisputed global leader. The group is only a leader in the European area and also Middle East Western Africa.
How can we be a global leader considering GAFAMs are leaders everywhere almost? That's my first question. Second question: This morning, Carac, a French private insurance company, mentioned the problem of diseases In France, we have many caregivers 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 this is going to be an increasing problem in the future.
Third question. It's 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.
Christel?
Regarding being a global leader in trust. What were these solutions? You're right to say that the attractive business is in France, Europe, but we are there for our clients everywhere in the world. We want to have cybersecurity services that are trusted. Not many companies know how to do this 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 send them to you. We do have schemes today that help caregivers with lighter hours. We also have part-time work for the elderly and different schemes to help employees who are also caregivers. Regarding the presentation, I'll let you answer.
I'll answer the third question. A general meeting is also an opportunity to present our achievements. We have to make choices regarding the compensation of the general management. What Anne-Gabrielle said was clear. We had to adapt the compensation of our CEO because it 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. We didn't give you all the details at the general meeting because you can refer to the document. Next question.
Bonjour, Daniel Dubois. Daniel Dubois. I'm a member of the CCAO. I'm an individual shareholder. I have two questions. One about Orange Cyberdefense. You're talking about revenue growth, right? You're not saying much about profitability. Is this a profitable business? Question number two. Well, at a 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. Couldn't we say that the best is yet to come given the number of clients you're acquiring?
1 million clients acquired each month in Africa, I think. You said also you would probably reach 400 million clients in 2028, more or less, if I got the message right. I have the feeling that recently you've been insisting on the performance of your business in Africa. That the different players on the market value, but I have the impression that Orange is undervalued given the potential that the group has. Netflix has 350 million clients. Their market value is $400 billion. I know it's a different group altogether, see what I mean.
Wow, that's interesting. Now as far as Orange Cyberdefense 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 Orange Business and Orange Cyberdefense. 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. These two lines of business are improving their margins regularly, steadily, just like 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 investors that our group, we're not saying anything about the value of our company. We're not giving any outlooks because the analysts will be working on our outlooks. It's their job, after all. If we take the example of Africa, it's been years Orange has been organizing roadshows with investors is 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. 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 strat plan that says we want to build on the number of clients we have. We're targeting 380 million by 2028. We started at 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. 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. As you can see, we're going to continue and work on that. We're very happy to see that the Group market value's gone up. We're working hard on that. It's good to see that there's visible and tangible results.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Bonjour. [Alfred Chauwa]. I'm an individual shareholder. We talked about macroeconomic outlooks before. 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's move towards satellite networks. Therefore, I was thinking about resilience. Is resilience something you factored in in your decision when you decided to exit copper? This represents more than EUR 1 billion. That's a total cost.
Well, the copper network is resilient inasmuch as you use electricity to power the network. If you take the example of Mayotte and the Chido storm, copper was down because the posts were down. Everything was destroyed. It's a false idea to think that it's more resilient than fibers. When you have civil engineering infrastructure that's down, that's destroyed, everything's destroyed into smithereens. We're working on complementary solutions. 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 OneWeb and Eutelsat.
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 2025 in France, we launched the first connectivity solution using satellites called SMS on satellite on your mobile phones. As you can see, we need several solutions should there be a conflict or an extreme event.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Thank you. I'm an individual shareholder as well. It took me a little while to arrive here. I couldn't manage to get through easily. Well, anyway, I have two questions to ask. Number 1, there's some type of madness about AI nowadays and a lot of speculation about AI, mainly with the memory cards. Could this impact the group? The memory cards, when they're more expensive, it's more complicated to have them on an individual device because they're used in data centers first. Question 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're not directly involved in these conflicts?
Let me start with the cost and availability of memory cards. This, of course, has an impact on us. Well, the memory cards today are used by the main AI data centers and the GPUs. As we speak, Orange has seen price increases. We have secured our procurement. It's not a one-off thing. It'll 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 STPs and that we either repair or recycle. As far as mobile devices and terminals 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 to seeing these types of shortages. This is something that we've included in our group trajectory. 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 operate in Mali, Burkina Faso, 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.
The number one priority is that everybody goes back home safe, protect them and their families. Therefore, when there's a crisis, we take measures. Usually the measures are similar to other companies' measures, like a curfew. People working at home, telework. Sometimes we help them leave the country. We help the foreigners leave the country. Nobody is allowed to travel abroad if these countries are in conflict. We're here. 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, we have a foothold in Jordan.
We have teams in Jordan. They're used to this. We have Orange Business teams in Dubai, in Israel, or Lebanon. Unfortunately, they operate in complex environments, we're taking all the necessary measures to protect them. Usually, these people are the nationals from these countries, we can't say we're going to remove them and we're going to ask them to live somewhere else because this is a conflict area. This is not desirable. This is not what they want or wish.
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 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.
Hello, [Martin Neck], individual shareholder. Another question about AI, sorry. Edge computing, is it central for AI, industrial AI, I mean? There are other European telcos like Telefónica 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 has different types of definitions. If you discuss with the hyperscalers, well, for a hyperscaler, opening a data center in Bordeaux is edge computing. 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. 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 usage cases. This would be the case in the U.S., and the OEMs are working on that. There's what we call AI-RAN. RAN, that is, the RAN, if people have connected glasses or telephones that would use AI all the time. We have innovation teams that are working on this. As we speak, well, first, what's very important to remember is that 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. These are important topics, of course. We brainstorm on that. I wouldn't say, though, that we would have revenue plans, that is, plans aiming at increasing our revenue from that source. Our teams are working on this.
Thank you very much. Please.
Hello, dear Chairman, Madam CEO. I represent an individual shareholder who's always been since the company was floated, that is at the time of France Télécom, and she was a client of the group before that. Think about her age. 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 five years, which is huge. Should this continue next year, then the subscription for fixed lines will be more expensive than that of a box or STB. Quality of service is going down and we'll have to pay more. It's a strategic choice. Will France Télécom continue? That is it only those who have these boxes for fixed lines, landlines, that will have to pay? Couldn't we distribute this price or this cost over all the clients? Now that we have copper, France Télécom has become a leader on the market. That's the question.
Well, we're not going to look too much into the past, our copper network is something we are proud of. Our teams and the France Télécom teams were very happy. They deployed it in 40 years. Orange is proud because we did that in 15 years. It's a feat. It's incredible. The copper network is being emptied today. We have more than 10 million fiber subscribers today at Orange. France has moved to fiber.
We're decommissioning copper networks, it really shows that fiber is a success. 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 old. There are people who are robbing the infrastructure if I can say. The number of thefts is increasing. If we want to meet our carbon objectives, we have an obligation.
We want to be more efficient. Commercially speaking, the fiber network is a success. That's why we're decommissioning the copper network. We're not the only ones. All the 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. There's a regulator in Europe. The price for unbundling is the same for all operators. These are regulated by what we call Arcep in France.
We can increase the unbundling price because we recognize that we have fewer customers, therefore, the price signal that's going up for copper is something very important because today you have a fiber subscription which sometimes is less expensive than the copper subscription. We guide our clients. We help them migrate to fiber technology. The quality of migration's improved considerably. It wasn't always the case, I must say, when there was strong adoption of fiber technology, there's no doubt from the industrial point of view, it doesn't make sense to have two land networks in parallel, for landlines, I mean.
Thank you. Next.
Congratulations. We've been waiting for this for the past 15 years. We have three operators. Good. It should have been quite natural. I have a question. To start with, Orange was the result of a merger with a British company. Do you still have business in the U.K.? Is this an interesting market? I have another question. You are the highways of data with video conferencing, with images, imaging, connectivity.
This requires more broadband, increased traffic. What are you going to do in the future? In the U.S., for instance, there are huge data centers, they 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. That's something important and sensitive, more and more throughput and data that's going to be hypersensitive?
The 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. Then we had a JV with Deutsche Telekom in England that was then bought back by British Telecom.
So we no longer have any business in England. To date, we don't have any projects to expand to the U.K. today nor tomorrow. As we've been saying from the outset, our value-creating strategy will have to be through Romania, Belgium, Spain, and all of these markets on which we are focusing. Now we're focusing on the French market.
As we said, we're not against geographical expansion. Today we are more turned towards the African market in terms of expansion because the European market is already very mature. 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 on our networks, +10%- 30% in terms of traffic depending on where you're looking at things. It's all pulled by the cloud.
It's pulled by all the uses that we're familiar with today. The major players in AI and hyperscalers said it clearly, their goals in terms of reducing their carbon footprint, well, either they are pushing back the dates or they are going back on their targets. That's why we are working on energy efficiency for all of our footprint. When I presented our carbon trajectory, it 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 Mr. Zerbib mentioned it earlier, we want to make sure that the uses we develop are adapted. Sometimes we need very powerful technology, but 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 uses, that's really at the heart of our strategy.
Next question, row four, row two, I'll accept one last question after those two, we'll move on to the vote of the resolutions.
Hello, I have a couple questions. First one, what are the governance mechanisms that can allow Orange arbitrate AI projects in terms of performance, operational efficacy, security and environmental impact? My second question is more on underwater cables. Today, in terms of geopolitics, we see that underwater cables are the invisible backbone of our digital sovereignty. I'd like to know how Orange is assessing the risks of these cables being cut down, and what means are being put in place to reinforce the resilience of these infrastructures? Thank you.
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. We're looking up 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 a 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 an ethics council that we use in some cases whenever we have ethical questions that are raised, for instance, and we have external people who come and help us. We want to make sure that we ask ourselves the right questions. That's the way we work. Now, we were talking about agentic AI and the questions it raises, we are discussing these matters with other companies, of course, too. Regarding underwater cables, there are several questions within one question. It's more than 98% of Internet traffic goes through submarine cables, even though we all think it goes through mobile waves because we all have mobile phones.
These infrastructures, the underwater cables, are extremely strategic. Today we have some of these cables that are being cut off in the Red Sea. That happened. It slows down the Internet traffic. For all users, these incidents are completely invisible. In 2024, we also had off the shores of Côte d'Ivoire an earthquake, an underwater earthquake that really hit the countries. Several cables, four underwater cables were cut at the same time. There was a power outage at large scale. 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. If we want to be resilient, the only way is to have redundancy. To work in remote countries, in islands, they need this redundancy. France, because of its coastline, is really at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, and also between Europe and the American continent. Our teams are working with Orange Marine to repair underwater cables. That's their job.
Thank you. Next question.
I'd like to come back to the Altice sale project. I know that different operators are interested in different fields, B2B. Free is interested in Something else I'd like to know, who's interested in Altice?
Well, it's not really about being interested. We have a consortium agreement that was made public in October 2025 and in which we submitted an offer together. There's an agreement between the three operators. As the Chairman said earlier, it's not a small thing to have three competitors gather around the table and find a consortium in line, of course, with competition rules. We agreed with the vendor. We are under discussions. Now, regarding MVNO, that's a matter between Orange and Bouygues today. Orange is one of the players who's 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 steered by Christel and our two counterparts, our two competitors. When you look at things closely, you see it's quite balanced. Everyone should actually make sure that the balance is respected, that we comply with competition rules. We are three competitors, Mr. Guérin is making sure that the rules are abided by.
We have to make sure also that we're always below the acceptability thresholds given by the competition authorities. It was a lot of work. It lasted a year and a half to carry out this work. Now, the Orange assets are clearly distributed. Now, last question, maybe a couple last questions, row four and row five, we'll stop here if you agree. This question, row four.
Hello. I'm a bit impressed. I would like to thank you. I'm Vincent. I'm a shareholder, as many of you, I'm also an employee. I'd like to thank my supervisors, my managers for the quality of the exchanges we've had and we're going to have. 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 are better promises to make to shareholders?
Many of us as employees are retraining. I myself have retrained in AI. Don't you think there are better promises to make than simply increasing dividends? Because value is created by employees, human beings. We're talking a lot about technical matters, copper, fiber, but behind all this, there are human beings. This value we are sharing is created by Orange employees. I think there are better promises to make than 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. I do want to have a return on investment. I do understand your position. 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 talked about stock price developments. I talked about this heritage we have, EUR 3.8 billion in heritage that Orange employee shareholders have in their hands. Year-after-year, we try and manage to share that value, to distribute that value amongst employees. This distribution has remained quite stable throughout the years, even though dividends haven't gone up recently.
We have many different stakeholders. We have employees, we have our clients, we have our shareholders, the French state, it's also a stakeholder. 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. There haven't been any great imbalances, nothing detrimental to our employees and the country, and there is stability of the added value that is allocated to our employees.
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 number one investors in fiber with more than 100 million sockets installed and we have 100 million fiber facilities and only 15 million clients. We invested so as to increase the number of fiber connections in the future. What the board, the Chairman of the Board and the CEO want is a right balance when it comes to compensating the different stakeholders. There's no conflict between employees and shareholders. We really want to make sure that both are on the par. Last question.
Thank you. Key infrastructures has always been very important at Orange. We talked about fiber, underwater cables. I'd like to come back to AI infrastructure. I'd like to know how today at Orange we secure AI infrastructure as much as possible?
AI infrastructure today, if you look at who invests in this infrastructure, first of all, what are we talking about when we talk about AI infrastructure, because, you know, 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. 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. We're preparing. We've invested a little to have own infrastructure, to rent capabilities, and to do everything we've described and everything Bruno presented. It doesn't require the huge calculation power we can see in China or in the U.S., for instance. That raises another question.
In Europe, digital infrastructure are important, can we think about AI without a European AI? 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 French partners in the cybersecurity field. We mentioned [Shos]. In cybersecurity. We are also working with a French tech startup on AI matters. Our role is also to support AI systems, the development and the construction of a European AI as well. 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 Nicolas Guérin, Secretary General of Orange and Secretary of 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. [Non-English content] The only one that's going to be adopted is the resolution that has the greatest number of votes in favor. The other ones will be null and void. The results will be given at the end of Resolution Number 22. We can start voting. The final quorum, 82.66%. We will start voting on Resolution Number one. Resolution Number one, the statutory financial statements.
You can start voting now. Time is up. [Non-English content] 99.98%. Number two, approval of consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31st, 2025. You can start voting now. Time's up. Carried. 99.99%. Number three, allocation of income for fiscal year ended 31st of December. You can start voting now. Time's up. Carried 98.18%. Number four, regulated agreements.
Stop voting now, please. Time's up. Results. Carried 98.49%. Number five, reappointment of a director, Mr. Jacques Aschenbroich. Time's up. Carried 98.34%. Congratulations, Mr. Aschenbroich. Resolution number six, reappointment of a director. Mrs. Valérie Beaulieu, you can vote now. Time's up. Carried 97.67%. Congratulations, Madam Beaulieu. Number seven, approval of information related to 2025 compensation of corporate officers as stated in the corporate governance report.
You can start voting now. Carried 97.78%. Number eight, approval of the 2025 compensation component for our CEO. Please vote. Time's up. Carried 96.25%. Number nine, approval of the 2025 compensation for the chairman. The result is that it's carried 99.3%. Number 10, approval of the compensation policy for 2026 of our CEO. Time's up. Carried 81.74%. Number 11, approval of the compensation policy for 2026 of the chairman of the board. You can start voting now. Time's up. Carried 99.3%.
Resolution 12, approval of the compensation policy for 2026 of directors. The clock is ticking. Time is up again. Carried 99.96%. Resolution 13, Resolution 17, authorization to be granted to the Board of Directors to buy or transfer company shares. Time's 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 board. You can start voting now. Time's up. Carried 99.88%.
Resolution 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. Time is up. Carried 98.57%. 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. The time is up. [Non-English content].
Resolution number 17, authorization given to the Board of Directors to reduce the capital by canceling shares. You can stop voting now. The scrutin is closed. Time is up. Carried 85.6%. Number 18, powers for formalities. Clock is ticking. The scrutin is closed. Time is up. Carried 99.99%. Resolution number 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. Carried 99.99%. Resolution number 20, decision to terminate the mandate of Mr. Pierre Chaussoneaux to be aligned on the new gender diversity rules. Time is up. 0.72% in favor. 21, decision to terminate mandate of Mr. Vincent Gimeno for the same reasons. Time is up. What we have is 0.68% in favor. Number 22, termination of the mandate of Mr. Sébastien Crozier for the same reasons. You can vote now. The time is up. Now we have 99.94% in favor. Therefore, this is the resolution. Number 22 is carried.
Therefore, Mr. Sébastien Crozier will terminate his mandate for Mrs. Hélène Marcy. Resolution number 23, appointment of the Director Representing Employee Shareholders, Mrs. Nadia Zak-Calvet, and the replacement is [Marc Fenwick]. You can vote now. Time is up. Carried 99.78%. Mr. Chairman, you are still the chairman.
Thank yCu very much, Nicolas Guérin. That's the end of our combined general meeting. Thank you again. Thank you for coming. Such a turnout here at Salle Pleyel in Paris. On your behalf, I'd like to thank the Orange teams, 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.
[Non-English content] 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, I'm sorry. I'm awfully sorry. That's true.
We have an alternative solution, that is amendment to resolution number 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. Time is up. Rejected 81.21%. We are so sorry about this. This is what the French would call a happening.
That is, 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. Yeah? Is that really May 25th? 27th. 27th. Chaired by Frédéric Sanchez. Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of the day.