Companies Uneasy As Jospin Victory Casts Pall Over Selloff Plans

The return of the Socialists casts severe doubt on Frances flagging privatisation programme and looks set to result in yet more delays to the much needed restructuring of the European defence industry.

Executives at a string of privatisation candidates were waiting anxiously on Monday for the first indications of whether Lionel Jospin, the new prime minister, would stick to the position spelt out in last months campaign.

This was that the party favoured neither new nationalisations nor new privatisations. His comments, in an interview in Le Monde newspaper, seemed broader than the position statement in the Socialist manifesto that the party rejects the privatisation of public services and their transformation into objects of profit.

 

The first operations that stand to be hit by the election of a leftwing government are the planned sale of stakes in France T