France seems ready to swap its ambition of leading the European aerospace industry

France seems ready to swap its ambition of leading the European aerospace industry with Germany’s own ambitions in the energy sector, says Financial Times. Paul Betts, a columnist for the British daily, stresses that French presidents like to “make their mark with a grand project”, citing achievements by General de Gaulle, Francois Mitterrand or Jacques Chirac in the industrial or artistic fields. But Nicolas Sarkozy, known for his interventionist and pragmatic approach, has yet to present his grand project. According to Mr Betts, the French president would be ready to strike a deal with the Germans, under which France would hand over its aerospace leadership –notably over EADS- to the Germans, and the Germans would surrender their nuclear ambitions by withdrawing Siemens from French nuclear group Areva. The columnist details a possible scenario: EADS acquires Alcatel-Lucent’s 21% stake in Thales; Dassault Aviation frees itself from EADS by buying back the 46% stake owned by the French-German group; then the Germans take firm control of EADS. This proposed scheme, says Mr Betts, underlines the difficulties of working out French-German industrial cooperation. It could raise another issue, he assesses: the real expertise in aviation lies more on the French than the German side. Financial Times