France’s Telecom Sector Under Siege: What the Bouygues and Orange Breaches Reveal

The French telecommunications industry has faced a bruising summer. Within just two weeks, two of the country’s largest operators—Bouygues Telecom and Orange—were forced to confirm cyber incidents that disrupted services and, in Bouygues’ case, exposed millions of customers’ personal and financial details.

These back-to-back breaches underscore both the growing attractiveness of telecoms as a target for cybercriminals and the sector’s strategic vulnerabilities at a time when national security and digital sovereignty are at the top of Europe’s agenda.