Veolia's takeover bid for Suez: Bruno Le Maire wants a friendly operation

We are continuing with you on this Suez-Veolia affair.

This is not the first time that Bruno Le Maire has opposed a large-scale industrial operation.

No, it's the third.

There had been his veto on the merger between Renault and Fiat, on the grounds that it might displease the Japanese ally Nissan.

Result, Fiat went to marry Peugeot-Citroën, Renault's front competitor.

Not sure that this affair was a good operation for the State shareholder of Renault.

Another ministerial veto, more recent this one, is the Carrefour affair with the ban on the Canadian Couche-Tard from buying the French distributor.

The difference with Renault is that this time it was two private companies.

Exactly like in the battle between Suez and Veolia.

This is the most astonishing.

Moreover, in the entourage of Bruno Le Maire, we readily recognize it: factually, Bercy can do nothing against this takeover. 

And yet, Bruno Le Maire did not hesitate to say it.

Precisely because political speech is in reality his only real weapon.

And because he thinks that, faced with this economic operation, he must play politics.

Not to favor Suez over Veolia, he said it clearly, he is as critical of one as the other.

No, he wants another solution.

He wants a friendly operation.

Yes, no confrontation, no capitalism of "the war of all against all".

It is not so much that our Minister of Finance would be a sensitive soul, no, but all this must be put in perspective with a credo, and with a circumstance.

The credo is that he wants to "reinvent capitalism".

The circumstance is the prospect of the presidential election.

The credo is that business life must be friendly, the circumstance is that nothing, in the next 15 months, should be attempted which could represent a danger of political disruption.

For Carrefour, the risk came from the food industry and the agricultural world.

For Veolia's takeover bid for Suez, the risk, we told Bercy, the risk is to alarm the unions and destabilize local communities (which are the customers for water and waste management) .

There you have it, that is to ensure that "politics reclaims the economy".

It is the law of the wave step.

So, it is perhaps reassuring politically, but from a business point of view, it is the guarantee that industrial France must now freeze while waiting for politics to pass.

Provided that in all the other countries which are not concerned with reinventing capitalism, our competitors will kindly, in all friendship, wait for our green light to move forward.