France could nationalise big companies if necessary - finance minister
The French government is prepared to use all means to support big companies suffering in financial market turmoil, including nationalisation if necessary, the finance minister said on Tuesday.
Bruno Le Maire’s remarks are the strongest indication yet that Paris is ready to pull out all the stops to steady the country’s biggest companies amid the turbulence unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic.
“I won’t hesitate to use all means available to protect big French companies,” he said on a conference call with journalists.
“That can be done by recapitalisation, that can be done by taking a stake, I can even use the term nationalisation if necessary,” Le Maire added, without saying which companies could be treated as a priority.
Le Maire also welcomed a decision by France’s financial markets authority to ban short-selling during trading on Tuesday on 92 French stocks and said the measure could be extended up to a month if necessary.
The ban includes some of France’s best known companies such as bank BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA), carmaker Renault (RENA.PA), and airline Air France KLM (AIRF.PA), which have all suffered steep losses on equity markets in recent days.