French telecoms trade union asks court to annul regulator’s spectrum licence award to Amazon’s satellite network over competition issues
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A French trade union has asked for the annulment of Amazon’s satellite licence in the country, citing competition concerns.
The CFE-CGC Telecoms union asked France’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, to annul a decision on July by telecoms regulator Arcep awarding Amazon a 10-year licence for frequencies used by its low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites.
In a statement, the union’s president and vice-president, Kathleen Beaude and Sébastien Crozier, said the move was intended to force increased regulation of satellite services in France.
‘Irresponsible’
“The entire French telecommunications ecosystem is at stake,” they said in a statement.
“Asking nothing of the American parties while leaving taxes and obligations to weigh on French operators seems in effect irresponsible to us.”
The union argued that Arcep did not conduct a market analysis before awarding the spectrum, failed to consult the competition regulator and did not conduct a competitive bidding process.
The CFE-CGC earlier this year asked Arcep to reverse its decision, saying at the time that Amazon Leo’s operations in France would create no jobs there, since the company’s European commercial base is in Ireland and its operations centre is in Germany.
Amazon’s satellite network, formerly known as Project Kuiper and recently branded as Amazon Leo, is planning to deploy more than 3,000 satellites to launch initial services late this year and more broadly in 2026.
Competition
The company launched its first 27 satellites in April with more than 150 now in orbit, and has signed up customers including airline JetBlue, L3Harris and Sky Brasil.
It hopes to have 1,600 satellites in orbit by the end of July 2026.
Leo is one of the main competitors to SpaceX’s Starlink, which has launched more than 10,000 satellites into orbit and has more than 2 million customers worldwide.
