We think competitive and price pressures in France Telecom's (FT's) mobile domestic market have further increased since fourth-quarter 2012, and that its overall revenues in key European markets also slowed in second-half 2012; We are concerned that the group's EBITDA could fall more sharply than we initially assumed in 2013, and that the restoration of stronger credit metrics by 2014 could fall short of our previous expectation. We are therefore placing our 'A-' long-term and issue ratings on FT on CreditWatch with negative implications and affirming the 'A-2' short-term rating. We intend to resolve the CreditWatch status in the next few weeks. We could lower the long-term rating by one notch absent further mitigating measures taken to accelerate absolute debt
