Free

Telecommunications tycoon Xavier Niel, co-owner of Le Monde, says he worked for French security services in 1980s.

The SNCF denied media reports that migrants were to get free tickets to travel around France, but said waving reservation fees was a 'possibility'.

Xavier Niel, who is behind the surprise bid for American firm T-Mobile, has shaken up the traditional world of French business.

The French company - owner of mobile phone and internet network operator Free - says it has offered $15 billion for majority stake in US firm.

In response to new law the online bookseller is now charging customers in France just one centime for books dispatched to their homes.

Decision casts doubts over immediate prospect of reducing number of competitors in the French market in bid to end a bitter two-year price war.

The four, held captive for almost a year, were found by Turkish soldiers on the border with Syria blindfolded and with their hands bound.

Head of French public-sector investment body says he would be prepared to back Bouygues in tussle for control of mobile phone firm SFR.

Move is blow to telecoms firm Bouygues who had also bid for its mobile phone rival, an option also backed by industry minister Arnaud Montebourg.

Official says public transport will be free until Sunday evening due to 'significant risks to the health of residents' as pollution continues.

Some observers suggest that the return to just three main mobile phone operators will reduce competition and be bad news for French consumers.

Bouygues Telecom's offer to sell its mobile network to Iliad, owner of Free, is dependent upon regulators approving its bid for Vivendi's SFR.

One of the men detained, a freelance photographer, managed to escape from the group who had taken him captive last November.

Xavier Niel earned significant amounts of cash in his early business career through investing in sex shops. But the billionaire’s real money was made in the telecommunications industry through his development and ownership of internet service provider Free. Here, in the second part of Mediapart's investigation into the influential businessman, Laurent Mauduit examines the crucial day on which Niel consolidated his control over the company that was to make his name and his fortune.