Meeting PM, Orange CEO corrects ‘misunderstood’ boycott comments

The CEO of mobile giant Orange, Stephane Richard, vowed on Friday that Orange “as a company has never supported and will never support any kind of boycott against Israel.” He said remarks he made last week about wanting to withdraw from Israel as soon as possible had been distorted and misunderstood.

His statements came during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

“It’s no secret that the remarks you made last week were widely seen as an attack on Israel,” Netanyahu told the Orange chief executive, “and so your visit here is an opportunity to set the record straight.”

Richard said he deeply regretted the controversy, praised Israel, and said his firm intended to “keep on investing here.” He said it was an honor to meet with Netanyahu and that he appreciated the opportunity to “set the record straight.”

Richard triggered an uproar last Wednesday when he told reporters in Cairo he wanted to “withdraw from Israel” as soon as “tomorrow morning… but without exposing Orange to huge risks” and potential compensation claims from Israeli mobile provider Partner, which uses the Orange brand.

Orange officially announced the next day that it intended to sever its ties with Partner, but it claimed the decision was based purely on its desire to pull the brand from “countries in which it is not, or is no longer, an operator.”

Partner’s owner Haim Saban on Saturday dismissed that claim as a “blatant lie” and said he was weighing “all options” to battle Orange.

Richard met with Netanyahu Friday in an act both men said was intended to “clarify” the misunderstanding.

“Israel is the one country in the Middle East that guarantees full civic rights. It’s the one county in the Middle East where everyone is protected under the law equally,” Netanyahu told Richard, addressing the boycott pressures that the Orange CEO has reportedly faced from Arab and French activists.

“We seek a genuine and secure peace with our Palestinian neighbors, but that can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties without preconditions. It will not be achieved through boycotts and through threats of boycotts,” the prime minister said.

Richard thanked Netanyahu for the invitation to meet.

“It’s an honor to meet with you this morning and it gives me also an opportunity to clear up the confusion that was created after those statements. I regret deeply this controversy and I want to make totally clear that Orange as a company has never supported and will never support any kind of boycott against Israel.”

Orange was committed to “doing business. We are doing communication. We are here to connect people, certainly not to participate in any kind of boycott,” the CEO said.

Richard praised Israel as “a fantastic place to be in the digital industry and of course our [desire] is to strengthen and to keep on investing here.”

It was not clear from the statement issued after the meeting, however, what continued investment Orange planned to carry out in Israel. There was no apparent reversal of last week’s decision to sever ties with Partner. That severing may take some time, however. Earlier this year, Orange and Partner signed a new 10-year contract for the latter’s use of the Orange brand.

In a letter earlier this week to Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, Richard noted that Orange “has a lasting presence in Israel” through its Orange Fab startup accelerator program and its subsidiaries Orange Business Services and Internet television specialist Viaccess-Orca.

Richard has been scrambling to contain the damage from his Cairo remarks for over a week.

“I am a friend of Israel, I love Israel, my comments were simply taken out of context and weren’t understood properly,” Richard told Interior Minister Silvan Shalom last Thursday. “I apologize on my behalf and on behalf of the company for the remarks. We at Orange condemn boycotts of all sorts.”

Richard also told Le Monde last week that Partner “is a company that uses the name of Orange, but that has nothing to do with the group and is not controlled by us. It is not in [our] policy that an operator over which we have no control use our brand,” he said. “This has nothing to do with the political context.”

AFP contributed to this report.