Being an American in Paris is ap­pealing at the cinema. In corporate life it can be a more painful experience, as Alcatel-Lucent showed on Tuesday. The US-French telecommunications equipment group is shedding both its chief executive and its chairman after failing to make any profit in its brief but unhappy life since the merger in November 2006.

News of the impending departures of Pat Russo, the US chief executive, and Serge Tchuruk, the French chairman, marks a low point for a group that now has a market capitalisation less than half what it was when it was formed. This is value-destruction on a heroic scale. No wonder shareholder discontent is becoming louder.