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Orange will be the exclusive provider of Apple's iPhone in France. This according to parent company's France Telecom's CEO Didier Lombard.

Unlike with this week's O2 press conference in Britain and T-Mobile announcement in Germany, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs was nowhere in sight to give his blessing to the Orange announcement. In fact, Apple has chimed in at all at this point.

Apparently, Lombard simply said the French people would gain access to the iPhone France "before Christmas, probably in November." Both O2 and T-Mobile plan to start distributing the iPhone on November 9th.

Lombard did not offering anything in the way of pricing information. The iPhone won't be subsidized, as it isn't through AT&T and won't be through the other European carriers, however.