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6 March, 2006
French unions will begin mass protests and strikes today across the country over the government’s broken promise, made a short 18 months ago, that Gaz de France (GDF) would remain at last 70% state held. The actions are due to a proposal made public a week ago to merge GDF with the French-Belgian publicly-traded water/power group, Suez.
The French government stands in the middle of the deal, which would effectively privatise GDF, with France’s stake only 34%. The government currently holds 80% of GDF.
The merger would have a detrimental effect on Electricité de France, costing mass job losses since Suez and its subsidiaries would supply power to GDF. CFDT Chimie Energie said the proposed merger lacks transparency in that no analysis of the combined industrial plan was presented, and the social aspects of such a Suez-GDF merger had not been studied adequately.
The deal is an attempt to block Italian energy company Enel’s hostile takeover bid of Suez.