France Telecom CEO Didier Lombard told a press conference in Paris yesterday that it would be “impossible” for the firm to make any large scale M&A deals in the current market climate, reports Dow Jones Newswires. “Do you think at the moment, given the state of markets, you are capable of carrying out a large merger operation? It’s impossible,” said Lombard when asked if France Telecom had rekindled its interest in merging with Nordic operator TeliaSonera, a deal that was first floated last year. He also refused to comment on recent reports in the Swiss media that France Telecom’s Swiss mobile arm (Orange Switzerland) was in talks to acquire local mobile operator Sunrise, a unit of Denmark’s TDC, for around €3 – €4 billion. Swiss weekly Cash cited unnamed sources as saying that France Telecom made a takeover approach for Sunrise in 2008 that was rejected as too low and was now in competition with German rival Deutsche Telekom to acquire the firm. Spokespeople for France Telecom and TDC both declined to comment on the report.

In separate news, Light Reading reports that Hamid Akhavan, CEO of T-Mobile International AG, told an investor conference this week that he was cautiously optimistic that operators – particularly mobile operators –  would  “weather the storm” caused by the current global economic downturn. According to a note by Dresdner Kleinwort, which organised the conference, Akhavan said that T-Mobile-parent Deutsche Telekom had shown resilience against current economic issues, and that indicators such as mobile usage and subscriber growth had not been adversely affected. He also reiterated Deutsche Telekom’s financial guidance for 2008.