When the rivers freeze

France Telecom’s bizarre adventures in the North country have rightly come to an end. The French telecom operator has pulled out of the bid, which it had called friendly, for Scandinavian competitor TeliaSonera. The deal was questionable to start with and was made worse by more than two months of leaks and blunders, perhaps an unavoidable feature of a transaction that would have involved three governments. It’s over now, but neither company can pretend it didn’t happen. FT may try to brag that ...