PARIS (Standard&Poor's) Sept. 25, 2001--After a broad review of France Telecom's deleveraging plan and financial policy, Standard&Poor's today lowered to triple-'B'-plus from single-'A'-minus its long-term corporate credit and senior unsecured debt ratings on the company and U.K.-based mobile telephone subsidiary Orange PLC. At the same time, all the long-term ratings were removed from CreditWatch, where they had been placed on Sept. 6, 2001, following the group's announcement of revised debt-reduction targets and credit-ratio projections up to 2003. The 'A-2' short-term corporate credit and commercial paper ratings on France Telecom were affirmed. The outlook is negative. France Telecom has postponed indefinitely the sale of about 100 million treasury shares, mainly due to adverse market sentiment toward telecommunications
