In 1908, the French telephone exchange on Rue Gutenberg in Paris burned down. A new telephone exchange was purchased from Ericsson, which delivered the telephone equipment very quickly. This was the opportunity that Ericsson had been waiting for to gain a foothold in the French market. To establish itself, a parts factory had to be opened. Thus, in 1911, Ericsson’s French subsidiary, Société Francaise des Téléphones Ericsson (STE), was founded, and in 1912, the company’s factory was completed on Avenue d’Achères in Colombes, a suburb of Paris. With this move, STE managed to become the supplier of the French PTT from the beginning. The cooperation continued after World War I with the manufacture of telephone sets. Until the 1950s, Ericsson was a co-producer with ITT in France. However, the ITT telephone system was later deemed obsolete. After a long period of research, France selected two systems to support telephone traffic in the country, giving ITT a second chance with the new Pentaconta telephone system and the choice of Ericsson’s Crossbar telephone system. In 1970, the French PTT decided to replace its aging analog telephone exchanges. In 1976, Ericsson’s AXE system was selected. France wished to maintain the development of telecommunications within the country and thus an agreement was reached with the Swedish Ericsson and the French electronics company Thomson-CSF which would take over STE, which would then manufacture the AXE telephone exchange under license.