As a first step in its grand plan to create an industrial electronic giant, the French government has unveiled proposals to merge consumer electronics group Thomson SA, which has a majority stake in defence electronics company Thomson-CSF SA, with the profitable nuclear fuel company CEA-Industrie. The 50% stake in loss-making chipmaker SGS-Thomson Microelectronics NV would be included in the merged company, but not Thomson-CSF, which would retain industrial and research links with SGS-Thomson. The idea of including France Telecom and Compagnie des Machines Bull SA in an even larger grouping to create an analogue of Siemens AG appears to have been put onto the back burner, and the model for the new planned company is said to be Toshiba Corp. The moves by the government are not likely to be well received by France’s one successful – and private sector giant in the field, Alcatel Alsthom SA, which no doubt will see the moves as putting a damper on its own expansion plans, since it could argue that CEA-Industrie would fit in well with its energy interests. Separately, it said it wanted to sell its Roneo mailroom equipment business and was in talks with a number of suitors.
