Last week France’s second and third cellcos, SFR and Bouygues, were supposed to be exploring a merger and/or a bid for MVNO Virgin Mobile. Just a week later, the wheel has turned again in the tumultuous French mobile market. This time, Numericable ‘ the Altice-controlled cable operator which is buying SFR ‘ is after Virgin, while Orange could even join the firms circling around Bouygues. The government, having insisted on creating a fourth network operator when it awarded spectrum to Iliad’s Free Mobile, now seems to favor reducing the number back to three carriers, having seen the price war sparked by Free’s disruptive pricing and cable/WiFI bundling, and the wave of job cuts forced upon the incumbent three. However the…