Gems of French industry for sale

Press, 12 September 1986, Page 10

Gems of French industry for sale

NZPA-Reuter Paris France’s Right-wing Government, determined to shake up the economy and boost private enterprise, has announced the sale within months of three of the brightest jewels of State enterprise and tax cuts within two years. Financial analysts said they expected a rush to buy the first shares in the three State-owned companies, to be offered in

November or December after a commission of independent experts has set the price. The announcement by the Finance Minister, Mr Edouard Balladur, has boosted the standing of Jacques Chirac’s Government, which has taken a battering in public opinion polls in recent weeks. Sample checks by the Sofres polling institute, taken immediately before and after Mr Balladur’s

90-minute television appearance, indicated an immediate rise in confidence in the Government’s handling of economic policy despite some scepticism over the real benefit of the promised cuts. Mr Balladur said the industrial group, Saint Gobain, the financial and banking group, Paribas, and an insurance group, Assurances Generales de France, would be the first of some 65 State-owned

enterprises to be sold off in the next five years. Analysts said all three were financially attractive and should have no difficulty in finding buyers. “They’ve chosen the three jewels ... these would probably be the three most attractive groups to buy into at the moment,” said one. Mr Balladur said the Government was also preparing the privatising of the State television chan-

nel, TF One, “which will be the chance to show that privatisation is also the way to recovery for an enterprise which isn’t doing so well.” The sale programme, partly inspired by the example of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government, aims at rolling back decades of centralised economic management in the biggest shake-up of the French economy since World War 11.