Losses and profits. It seems like a long time ago when the government displayed its desire to privatize large groups or to withdraw from them further! It was in 2017, at the start of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term. Engie, Groupe ADP (formerly Aéroports de Paris), the Française des jeux were on the list. Only the Loto operator was entitled to a withdrawal from the State, at the end of 2019, before the weakness of the markets, then the health and economic crisis prohibited any operation. The urgency is now to rescue companies that are both too strategic and too symbolic to fail.
Shaken by the aging of its nuclear fleet, EDF will receive 2.1 billion euros from the State, out of a capital increase of 2.5 billion. An insufficient first step to “restore accounts” and “reinvest in the future”, the construction of nuclear power plants and wind farms, acknowledged the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire. Total renationalization of a group that he owns at 84%? Openness to private capital? The only certainty of its CEO, Jean-Bernard Lévy, is that EDF has “not the means” to build six, a fortiori fourteen, new reactors alone. And he says he is open to “private investors”as it is doing on the UK’s Sizewell project in the east of England.
Only the Court of Auditors is worried
If EDF had a good year in 2021, with 4.72 billion euros in profits, Air France-KLM remained in the dark red, with a loss of 3.29 billion and activity still half that of 2019 After the 2020 and 2021 aid, the airline is preparing a recapitalization of 4 billion, essential for its survival. The State, which holds 29%, “will be alongside Air France”, has, once again, assured the Mayor, also recalling the support for Renault. The other shareholders (Dutch state, China Eastern and the American Delta Air Lines) are also ready, according to The echoes of February 21.
The crisis has once again shown that the intervention of the State, insurer of last resort, is a prerequisite for the financial recovery of large companies and an appeal to the markets. The State Holdings Agency (APE) is watching over the grain, with another 7 billion, in 2022, registered in a special account. In the presidential campaign, we do not hear protests against the firefighter who puts out the fire.
Where have the strict liberals gone? Only the Court of Auditors is worried. In a report, it points out that the APE does not have – contrary to its 2017 doctrine – the means of recapitalizing certain companies by selling other assets, which have been at a standstill for three years. A time bomb that will have to be defused over the next five years.