The draft law imposing a tax on financial transactions will concern only companies headquartered in France and whose market capitalization exceeds one billion euros, according to BFM radio-TV business, which publishes the text Monday.  

The project, to be presented Wednesday by the Cabinet, applies to "acquisition" of securities "issued by a company whose headquarters is located in France and whose market capitalization exceeds one billion euros in the first January of the taxation year ", according to this document.

It is therefore a levy of 0.1% on the exchange of shares and credit default swaps (CDS) called "naked", these financial derivatives intended to act as insurance to bondholders but are accused of promoting speculation on sovereign debt.

One hundred companies concerned

Currently, more than one hundred companies listed on the Paris Stock Exchange exceeds the market valuation. The high-frequency trading, suspected of serving speculation and based on discussions conducted a nanosecond, by computer, will also be affected by this law.  

But order cancellations or order changes will, however, lower taxes beyond a certain threshold. "Since the rate of cancellation or change orders within the scope of this tax exceeds a threshold, on a trading day, the tax amounts to 0.01% of the amount of orders canceled or changed beyond this threshold, "the statement said.

The document states that "the threshold is set by decree" but "can not be less than two-thirds of orders addressed and can be modulated depending on the size of balance sheet of the operators concerned." This tax would generate a billion euros a year will be applied from 1 August, stated the head of state Nicolas Sarkozy announcing its establishment.

The transaction is valued at 1.3 billion euros including debt Orange Austria amounting to around 1.1 billion euros.

France Telecom, owner of 35% of the operator, said it expects to receive "about 70 million" for the sale of its interest. The balance of the proceeds from the sale back to the investment fund Mid Europa Partners, owner of 65% stake in Orange Austria.

The owner of Hutchison Whampoa, the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, to expand its presence in Europe. It is already present on the Austrian market through the brand "3".

After the acquisition of Orange Austria, Hutchison claims the number three spot in the Austrian mobile phone with 2.8 million subscribers and 22% market share.

The combined turnover of the two sociétésa exceeded 700 million euros in 2011 (nearly 500 million for Orange Austria).

In a second step, Hutchison will divest certain assets of Orange Austria (including the mobile operator Yesss!) To Telekom Austria for EUR 390 million, announced it.

The agreement, subject to approval of regulatory authorities telecom and competition, should be effective in mid-2012. 

THE ASIAN ASSETS IN EUROPE

Asian societies, with substantial funding, have increased the asset purchases in Europe in recent times while the euro area is mired in debt crisis.

Chinese Shandong Heavy Industry has acquired last month 75% of Italian yacht maker Ferretti Group. And the Chinese sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp has acquired 8.7% of the holding company of British Thames Water.

The group of Li Ka-shing, looking for infrastructure investments in Europe, has already acquired the UK Northumbrian Water for 2.41 billion pounds last year. He also acquired $ 5.8 billion book distribution network of UK electricity from French EDF in 2010.

Li, nicknamed "Superman" by Hong Kong media for his business acumen, began his career in artificial flowers. It employs 26,000 people in 55 countries.

Hutchison also has activities in the 3G mobile in the UK, Italy and Australia. In the UK, it is in competition with, the number one mobile phone, Everything Everywhere, a subsidiary of Orange and T-Mobile.

FRANCE TELECOM CONTINUES REVIEW OF ASSETS

For France Telecom, Orange Austria exit is the second operation in the curly part of its review of assets, which aims to disengage the group of mature markets low growth while giving rise to additional returns to shareholders.

The operator has already defeated its subsidiary Orange Switzerland, sold at the end of December to fund Apax Partners for 1.6 billion euros.

In a statement, the group was pleased to have reached a new milestone in its "strategy to optimize the asset portfolio." 

Analysts at Raymond James estimate that the incumbent is likely to announce a program of share repurchases by an amount of up to 800 million euros, half of the proceeds of both sales .

"This would not enough to pay half of the minority interests of Mobistar while the other half could be addressed by potential tax synergies", added the analysts in reference reference to the Belgian operator France Telecom which is the majority shareholder.

At 12:30, the action of the French group was down 0.22% to 11.4750 euros while the CAC 40 rose 0.41%.

The title of Hutchison has in turn made up 3.8% to 76.20 Hong Kong dollars to the announcement of the transaction in a generally stable market.

In his televised speech Sunday night, Nicolas Sarkozy praised the German model of a good dozen times. The Head of State made an apology for Germany to justify its economic reforms – tax shield yesterday, the TFR reform, reinforcement of learning, social VAT, employment agreements competitiveness today and rule of budget or tomorrow. "Germany comes so often in political discourse that can be asked whether the president will not be a referendum on the German economic model," writes on his blog the deputy editor of Le Figaro Pierre Rousselin. Before voting, the French need to know what's behind the brilliant success of their neighbors across the Rhine.

Germany for the second straight year was the locomotive of the European economy in 2011, with growth of 3% after 3.7% in 2010. In comparison, France has recorded growth of 1.5% in 2010 and should reach painfully 1.7% in 2011. This strong growth has allowed Berlin to reduce its public deficit to 26.7 billion euros, or 1% of GDP. The deficit lights is five times higher. The other great success of Germany, is the dramatic decline in unemployment. The number of unemployed in Germany last year reached 2.976 million on average, the lowest level since the reunification of the country, and 263,000 fewer unemployed than in 2010. The unemployment rate in the country has crude dropped him in 2011 by 0.6 percentage points to 7.1% on average. In France, the opposite: the number of jobseekers rose by 152,000 last year and the unemployment rate is approaching 10%. At our defense, the French population is growing while that of Germany decreases.

The keys to success are known: a specialization in products where global demand remains strong (automotive, chemicals, capital goods, mechanical engineering), a significant number of medium-sized companies (between 250 and 5000 employees) called "Mittelstand" across the Rhine, a tradition and know-how in new markets, a training system in favor of including in business, the massive use of short-and a good social dialogue on wages and employment. "The secret of the German model, the industry, firm size, the co-decision and competitiveness," notes Jean-Claude Betbèze, chief economist at Credit Lyonnais, which does not hide his admiration for Economic Policy the country. Left to accept the painful counterparties.

Excessive wage compression German

For this coin has several setbacks. To restore its competitiveness, which had deteriorated sharply in the years following 1990 reunification, Germany has practiced under the leadership of the former Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a moderate wage policy in the early 2000. Policy that has increased sharply in 2003 and 2005 when launched an unprecedented series of reforms to the labor market more flexible. Known as the "Hartz" reforms including creating the mini-jobs, jobs that pay can not exceed 400 euros per month, which can be exercised in parallel on welfare or in more than one job "traditional".

Their goal is to encourage theoretical maximum of the unemployed to return to the world of work. Benefit to employers: "mini-jobs" are almost completely exempt from payroll taxes. Employers have tended to replace the mini-jobs to full-time classical contracts taxed, resulting in a sharp increase in part-time and an additional downward pressure on wages. Result: While Germany has expanded its exports increased between 2000 and 2010, but wages have declined in nominal terms (they have risen less than inflation). The median net monthly salary has lost 7.4% in 10 years across the Rhine, while the average annual wage increased by 10.8% in France.

"The compression of wages granted, if it were necessary because of the low productivity of the former East Germany, has gone much too far, deplores Ferdinand Fichtner, an economist at the research institute DIW (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung) in Berlin. This has affected the purchasing power of households and the share of consumption in GDP has contracted. Exports jumped and much faster than imports and Germany is now too dependent on foreign trade, "said he. We saw in 2009 at the height of the global economic crisis: German GDP fell 5.1% against a decline of 2.7% in France. And this year, while the euro area – which represents 40% of German exports – is on the brink of recession, the country's GDP expected to grow by only 0.3% according to the IMF.

A growing impoverishment of the population

The other side of the coin is a very strong impoverishment of employees. During the last decade, Germany has created 2 million jobs part time (and some full-time), while France has created 2 million full-time (and very few part-time). The proportion of part-time increased by one third across the Rhine in this period, while it remained stable in France. Germany is the fourth and part-time employees, including 19% (7 million) of mini-jobbers. Yet nearly 90% of these small jobs were classified low or very low wages (less than 9.76 euros gross per hour to the west and less than 7.03 euros per hour to the is). 20% of German employees are paid an hourly minimum wage below the French and 40% have a net monthly salary of less than 1000 euros.

The unemployed – 2.9 million people – are not better off. The last law passed by Schroeder, "Hartz IV", has in fact merged the long-term unemployment benefits and social assistance. Thus, since 2005, after a year of unemployment, the unemployed no longer receive an allowance of 850 euros, including housing assistance. 70% of German unemployed and live below the poverty line. More generally, Germany has 12 million poor (less than 940 euros a month, or 15% of the population against 13.5% in France. At the other end of the scale, hold 2 825 000 Germans, 6 million euros of assets, or 1% of the population who share a quarter of the country's wealth. "The policy of wage deflation conducted in Germany has led to an increase in income inequality at a speed never seen before, even during the shock of reunification after," denounced the International Labour Organization in a report published on 24 in January.

The ILO will even say that Germany is responsible for the crisis in the eurozone. "Improving the competitiveness of German exporters are increasingly identified as the structural cause of the recent difficulties in the euro area," said the UN agency based in Geneva. "In Europe, it created the conditions for a prolonged economic slump, because other countries are increasingly a policy of wage deflation even harder as a solution to their lack of competitiveness," said she . This view is shared in part, Ferdinand Fichtner. "Germany is of course not solely responsible for the debt crisis countries in the euro area, said the German economy. But it is true that the absence of inflation in Germany, due to the contraction of wages, has led the European Central Bank to conduct monetary policy too expansionary [low interest rates, note] for Greece, Spain, Portugal or Ireland. In these countries, access to easy credit Cheap and fed an artificial increase in wages and housing bubbles. "

The German model has, in the end, the virtues of which France would be right to draw, particularly in respect of industrial specialization, the ability of firms to be exported and enter new markets or the quality of dialogue social development. But every copy would be to bring down our social model, model once touted by Nicolas Sarkozy for his ability to have cushioned the shock of the global economic crisis.

Half an hour after the bell, stock markets were slightly widened their losses after the President of the European Central Bank (ECB) Mario Draghi said the downside risks to the economy increased. Investors are waiting to learn more about a response of Europeans to the debt crisis to position.

"The increase related to the decision of central banks yesterday allowed (market) to heal his wounds with a high gain of the euro and stock markets.The real question is: this rule does the real problems in Europe? No, not at all, "Judge Michael Hewson, an analyst at CMC Markets in London." This makes the return to the competitiveness of European peripheral countries due to the strengthening of the euro.

Finance Minister (Chancellor of the Exchequer), George Osborne, warned that the UK economy might slide into recession if the debt crisis was not quickly resolved.

"If the rest of Europe is heading into recession, it may be difficult to avoid in the UK," he told parliament in his address to the biannual budget.

The second part of the plan will be announced in May or June and will aim to increase employee productivity and quality of service, the newspaper said.

The Air France-KLM announced a savings plan for the first quarter 2012, when publishing its quarterly results in early November.

The group had announced on this occasion it would have lost the whole of 2011.

Orbeo, based in Paris, was founded in 2006 at par by the bank and the French chemist, in the context of the creation of carbon markets in 2005 and the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol in Europe.

The Solvay has already acquired half of this year by acquiring Rhodia Orbeo.When it has, by January 1, acquired the participation of SocGen, it will therefore control the whole.

"Rhodia Energy wishes to strengthen its commitment to the fight against climate change by making full use of industrial know-how of Rhodia and Solvay and expanding its offering in the integrated management of energy and CO2 emissions," said Solvay in a statement.

The terms of the agreement were not disclosed

An analyst with SocGen said the agreement had no connection with the collapse in prices of units of certified emission reductions, which reached Friday morning a new record low of 4.40 euros.

Berlin has been sold for 3.644 billion euros in loans to ten years against 6 billion expected, so that the Bundesbank, the German central bank, had to buy the remaining 39% to avoid failure of the operation.

The very low yields offered by the Bund have dampened the appetite of investors, already concerned about the cost that will impose on Germany a spiral of debt crisis in Europe.

"This is a complete disaster, absolute," said Marc Oswald, strategist Monument Securities in London.

The sustainable palm oil seems increasingly preferred to curb deforestation, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). But the efforts of the major European manufacturers and retail chains involved are still too slow, said Tuesday the NGO. In a study of 132 European companies, WWF estimates that nearly a distributor of two and a manufacturer in five does not meet the charter of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an association created in 2004 bringing together producers, industry and NGOs worldwide.Indonesia and Malaysia produce between them about 80% of world production of palm oil product with multiple uses (cosmetics, food, bio-fuels).