Richard told French newspaper Le Figaro in a recent interview that the company has “no intention of selling Dailymotion”, and plans to expand the video sharing platform in the US.
Dailymotion, ranked the 31st most visited site on the internet in November 2012, was the object of a rumoured 75% take-over deal from Yahoo! in a deal potentially worth up to $300 million - but Richard said he had no plans to sell the video sharing website.
"What Dailymotion needs today is the means to accelerate its developing especially in the U.S. to compete with Youtube.”
“We will remain an influential shareholder in Dailymotion and will be attentive to the consequences for Orange and for France of any eventual partnership."
France Telecom initially bought a 49% stake in the video sharing website, which has 116 million users each month, in 2011 before increasing ownership to 100% earlier this year.
