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Verwaayen would not be drawn on whether he is committed to BT for another three years. He said: “I am absolutely committed to making sure we have a working strategy. We have great momentum.”

He added: “Pierre and I have grown into a very good partnership and friendship. I was fully aware that if you have a star player on the team, that star player will get a lot of attention. We concluded this was the time.”

Additionally, Danon was no longer the internal favourite to succeed Verwaayen. Ian Livingston, BT’s young finance director, and Andy Green, head of BT Global Services, now have better claims.

Danon said he had received many offers (“I always listen”), including a couple to be chief executive of smaller FTSE 100 companies. He dismissed a suggestion that he was taking the Cap Gemini job after being passed over as a replacement for Thierry Breton, the chairman and chief executive of France Telecom. According to French reports, President Jacques Chirac wants Breton to become finance minister when Nicolas Sarkozy resigns tomorrow.

“It’s not true at all,” said Danon. “It’s a stupid rumour. ”

Danon said he was attracted by the job (and salary — much more than the £829,000 he was paid by BT) of running all of Cap Gemini, which employs 60,000 people across Europe and America. He said there was no understanding about him replacing Hermelin. “First of all, I could fail. Paul is not leaving at all. Have you ever seen me disloyal to Ben? I will serve Paul Hermelin as I have served Ben.”

The mystery that remains is the alleged boardroom split over Danon’s proposal to invest in so-called local loop unbundling — installing BT Retail’s own equipment in local exchanges to allow it to compete more effectively in the broadband market.

“It did not make sense,” said Charlier. BT Retail would have been duplicating equipment, but would have been unable to provide advanced services to rural areas.

One theory is that this was an attempt to send a message to Ofcom, the industry regulator, about the way in which current rules prevent BT Retail competing effectively.

If this was the case, it is strange that the message was so garbled — no clear understanding of BT’s thinking emerged until after the first reports of a boardroom bust-up.

Some insiders wonder whether Danon had a narrower purpose: to give himself an excuse for BT’s declining share of retail broadband connections, now down to about 30%.

However, the British telecoms industry may not have seen the last of Danon. He remains a great fan of the UK and will be sad to leave.

“I am going to do at least three years with Cap Gemini,” he said. “If Ben in three years decides to move on and BT calls and says, ‘would you be interested in the job of BT chief executive’, I’d consider it.”