France Telecom’s sales director Jean-Jacques Damlamian was embarrassed at the results press conference by a journalist who asked him why it was that the tariffs being set up in Greece by Panafon SA, the mobile telecommunications venture of France Telecom, Vodafone Group Plc and Greece’s Intracom SA, were half of those charged in France: Damlamian mumbled something about the fact that its partner in Greece has to have autonomy in its decision-making, and then went on to say that there is an evolutionary plan for mobile tariffs in France, in which they should ultimately join those of the majority of European countries – in other words they will become less of a rip-off.
