Starlink hausse le ton face à l'Europe – 29/06

Elon Musk’s Starlink is escalating a confrontation with European regulators over spectrum and satellite rights, and the episode opens with the panel framing this as a direct sovereignty challenge. The European Union wants to reserve a third of its high-speed satellite spectrum for European operators, a third for new entrants (mostly European), and leave the rest open. Musk, who already cut Starlink’s Ukrainian service when it conflicted with his interests, does not recognize this allocation. The panel sees this as a deliberate move by Europe to buy time for its own satellite constellation, Iris², which is still years away. But the deeper worry, raised by Michel Lévy-Provençal, is that Europe has no equivalent to Starlink’s direct-to-mobile capability. Apple already embeds satellite antennas in iPhones; if Apple struck a deal with Musk, a billion devices could bypass traditional telecom operators like Orange overnight, devaluing their terrestrial infrastructure. Bruno Guglielminetti adds that Musk operates like a cowboy—his priority is his own network, and he has been cavalier about orbital collisions, slow to respond to warnings from other satellite operators. The panel agrees that Europe’s bureaucratic consortium model cannot match Musk’s speed, risk tolerance, or financial firepower. The risk is not just losing a market share fight but being structurally bypassed.