Orange-owner France Telecom aims to increase its client base worldwide to 300 million by 2015 – up from about 200 million today – as part of its new five-year strategic plan, reports Reuters. The firm’s new CEO, Stephane Richard (pictured), presented the plan at a news conference today. The plan forms part of the firm’s strategy to rebuild its reputation in France after a spate of employee suicides. The new measures for workers set out in the company’s “social contract” for France would cost EUR900 million, the group said. It plans to hire 10,000 additional employees by the end of 2012 to compensate for the rising average age of employees in France. “From now on we will think more in terms of number of recruitments than of head count,” Richard told French newspaper Le Parisien. “In France almost half of workers will leave the group by 2018 as they reach retirement age so we must anticipate this.”

Richard also outlined a new content strategy based on partnering with content providers, a departure from his predecessor, Didier Lombard, who had preferred direct acquisition of content rights, paying more than EUR200 million a year for rights to games of France’s football league. “I prefer putting in place an approach based on partnerships – either commercial or technological – eventually complemented by a minority stake,” Richard said. Asked by the paper whether France Telecom would bid for the French football rights again in 2012, he answered: “What is sure is that we will not bid again on our own.” France Telecom also used the press conference to reiterate its previously stated objective of EUR8 billion in free cash flow in 2010 and 2011.