Altice has relented, and an increased bid from French rivals Bouygues, Iliad, and Orange, has been deemed worthy to officially enter acquisition negotiations. For France, this consolidation from four operators poses competition and efficiency questions. For the EU, this might be a step closer to the ‘megamergers’ that the European Commission believes will improve competitiveness on the global stage. We have always been quite cynical on this latter point. From an efficiency point, creating (presumably via EU-led legislation and incentives) large operators with networks spanning multiple countries does not really solve the problem. Instead, creating a single operator to run a single country, in a monolithic manner, would be the more logical choice. Reader alarm bells will be ringing, but…