SARKOZY s'apprête à brader EADS...
Sarkozy prêt à brader l'Aéronautique française et à sacrifier aux allemands les entreprises EADS, avec notamment AIRBUS et Eurocopter. En effet, le Financial Times du 20 mai s'est fait l'écho d'un plan industriel en préparation à l'Elysée afin de constituer un pôle nucléaire français avec en embuscade ( ?) l'ami Martin Bouygues, qui a pris 21% d'Alstom.
Areva et Alstom seraient fusionnés. Mais il faut dédommager les allemands, car Siemens, actionnaire d'Areva, devrait sortir du nouvel ensemble (on ne sait pas bien pourquoi).
Comme solution, les français leur offriraient le contrôle d'EADS en échange
Si ce schéma se réalise, ce sera un véritable scandale. Comment imaginer que la France de la Caravelle, de Concorde et d'Airbus, de l'Alouette 2 et 3 au NH90 abandonne un pan entier de son industrie de pointe ?
On comprend mieux quelque part l'agitation de Sarkozy pour vendre des centrales nucléaires à chacun de ses déplacements à l'étranger !
L'information n'a par ailleurs, pas été démentie par l'Elysée.
A suivre de près, car si cela se concrétise, cela méritera une vraie réaction...
DH
Financial Times FT.com
Franco-German carve-up of Europe's industrial spoils
By Paul Betts
Published: May 19 2008
French presidents like to make their mark with a grand project.
One of General de Gaulle's proudest achievements was launching (with the British) the now-defunct Concorde supersonic airliner. François Mitterrand constructed the Louvre pyramid and Jacques Chirac brought his passion for ethnic art to life with the Musée Branly.
Nicolas Sarkozy has yet to reveal his grand project, but that does not mean he is not drawing up blueprints behind the scenes. True to his interventionist approach, the current president has an even grander scheme in mind to make France the undisputed European champion of nuclear energy. To achieve his ends, however, will require industrial engineering on a scale not seen since nationalisation under the first Mitterrand presidency in the early 1980s.
The pragmatic Mr Sarkozy seems prepared to cut a deal with the Germans that would mean France giving up to Germany its long-held ambition of leading the European aerospace industry. In return, Germany must be willing to surrender its own ambitions in the energy sector to the French. In practice, this means handing over leadership of EADS to the Germans and the withdrawal of Siemens from France's Areva nuclear group.
It is only an idea being bandied about in the highest circles, but serious enough to be worrying the French aerospace community. In effect, the plan could go like this. The troubled Alcatel-Lucent telecoms equipment group sheds its 21 per cent stake in Thales, the French defence electronics company, to EADS. This would help balance the EADS industrial portfolio, which is still too reliant on Airbus. Meanwhile, Dassault Aviation would regain its freedom from EADS by buying back the 46 per cent stake held by the Franco-German group.
EADS - where the need to maintain an equal balance between French and German influence has been a source of permanent friction - would then come firmly under German control. In turn, this would satisfy Berlin's long cherished desire to re-establish Germany as a leading aerospace nation.
The price for obtaining leadership of the European aerospace industry will be lifting the German obstacles to Mr Sarkozy's grand nuclear plan. In particular, Siemens would have to pull out of Areva, clearing the way for a merger between Areva and Alstom - the French heavy engineering group and builder of power turbines that was rescued by Mr Sarkozy's vigorous intervention when he was finance minister a few years ago.
Mr Sarkozy believes this would anchor French leadership in the nuclear industry and in the booming energy sector in a lasting and more profound way.
The sad thing about this proposed Franco-German split is that it eloquently shows that cross-border industrial co-operation between the countries does not work. Moreover, the real expertise in aviation lies far more on the French than the German side. Under the circumstances, it seems only fair to ask whether such a division of industrial spoils is really in Europe's broader interests in the longer term.
