Xavier Merlin will become a member of the Arcep Executive Board on 12 January 2024, following his appointment by the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, on 22 December 2023.
An engineer of the “Corps des Mines,” a graduate of the École Polytechnique and the Institut d’études politiques de Paris, Xavier Merlin had been the head of the Inter-ministerial task force on simplifying businesses’ administrative procedures and legal publicity since 2019.
Xavier Merlin began his career in 1996 at the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry’s Department of Forecasting, where he was in charge of economic studies on the internet, audiovisual media, telecommunications and competition. In 1998, he joined that ministry’s Department of External Economic Relations, and tasked with multilateral e-commerce, audiovisual media, telecommunications and postal negotiations. Appointed technical advisor to Catherine Tasca, then France’s Minister of Culture and Communication, in 2000, he became Director of European and International Affairs at the French National Centre of Cinema (CNC) in 2002. In 2008, the joined the Directorate-General for Enterprise (DGE) as the Assistant Director of Institutional relations, in the areas of information technologies and the information society. Assistant Director of Regulation and European and multilateral affairs for the DGE starting in 2009, he was appointed head of the Territorial, European and International Action Department in 2014.
Xavier Merlin will be replacing Serge Abiteboul, who has been a member of the Arcep Executive Board since 2018. The Authority extends its heartfelt thanks to Serge Abiteboul for his major contributions to the work done by Arcep.
The Arcep Executive Board is composed of seven members: Laure de La Raudière (Chair), Maya Bacache, Joëlle Cottenye, Emmanuel Gabla, Sarah Jacquier Pelissier, François Lions and Xavier Merlin. Three of them, including the Chair, are appointed by the President of the Republic. The other four are appointed, respectively, by the President of the National Assembly and the President of the Senate. Appointed for a period of six years, Board members’ term of office is irrevocable and non-renewable.