France is betting Eutelsat can become Europe’s answer to Starlink — but experts aren’t convinced
France views Eutelsat as a strategic asset in the EU’s push for technological sovereignty.
Benoit Tessier | AFP via Getty Images
For years, France’s Eutelsat has been trying to build a European alternative to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite broadband service.
The company merged with British satellite venture OneWeb in 2023, consolidating the region’s satellite communications industry in an effort to catch up to Starlink, which is owned by SpaceX.
Last week, the French state led a 1.35-billion-euro ($1.58 billion) investment in Eutelsat, making it the company’s biggest shareholder with a roughly 30% stake.
Europe largely lags behind the U.S. in the global space race. Starlink’s constellation of over 7,000 satellites dwarfs Eutelsat’s. Meanwhile, Europe’s launch capabilities are more limited than the U.S. The region still relies heavily on America for certain launch services, which is a market dominated by SpaceX.
Eutelsat currently has a market capitalization of 1.6 billion euros, much lower than estimates for Starlink owner SpaceX’s value, which was pegged at $350 billion in a secondary share sale last year. In 2020, analysts at Morgan Stanley said that they see Starlink growing to $80.9 billion in their “base case valuation” for the firm.
Luke Kehoe, industry analyst at network monitoring firm Ookla, said France’s investment in Eutelsat shows the country “is now treating Eutelsat less like a commercial telco and more like a dual-use critical-infrastructure provider” and a “strategic asset” in the European Union’s push for technological sovereignty.
However, building a European competitor to Starlink will be no mean feat.
Donald Trump and reports surfaced that U.S. negotiators had raised the possibility of cutting Ukraine’s access to Starlink.
Germany set up 1,000 Eutelsat terminals in Ukraine in April with the aim of providing an alternative — rather than a replacement — for Starlink’s 50,000 terminals in the war-torn country.
Since then, U.S.-Ukraine tensions have somewhat cooled, and Starlink remains the primary satellite broadband provider to the Ukrainian military.
Eutelsat’s former CEO Eva Berneke has herself admitted that the company cannot yet match Starlink’s scale.
“If we were to take over the entire connectivity capacity for Ukraine and all the citizens — we wouldn’t be able to do that. Let’s just be very honest,” she said in an April interview with Politico.
Berneke was replaced as CEO in May by Jean-Francois-Fallacher, a former executive of French telecoms giant Orange.
Cisco’s ThousandEyes network intelligence unit.
Looking ahead, Eutelsat said it plans to “build upon its operation improvements” with a “differentiated go-to-market model” and “strong European anchoring.” It also noted that the U.K. government could also increase its investment in Eutelsat “in due course.”
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