United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

A column in Monday's Financial Times reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is planning to abandon France's co-equal role in leadership of EADS, a pillar of Europe's military-industrial complex, in return for making France "the undisputed European champion of nuclear energy."[1] -- The arrangement would involve "the withdrawal of Siemens," which holds 34% of its shares, "from France’s Areva nuclear group," columnist Paul Betts said, and "a merger between Areva and Alstom — the French heavy engineering group and builder of power turbines that was rescued by Mr. Sarkozy’s vigorous intervention when he was finance minister a few years ago." -- Betts concluded: "The sad thing about this proposed Franco-German split is that it eloquently shows that cross-border industrial co-operation between the countries does not work. Moreover, the real expertise in aviation lies far more on the French than the German side. Under the circumstances, it seems only fair to ask whether such a division of industrial spoils is really in Europe’s broader interests in the longer term." ...

One of General de Gaulle’s proudest achievements was launching (with the British) the now-defunct Concorde supersonic airliner. François Mitterrand constructed the Louvre pyramid and Jacques Chirac brought his passion for ethnic art to life with the Musée Branly.

Nicolas Sarkozy has yet to reveal his grand project, but that does not mean he is not drawing up blueprints behind the scenes. True to his interventionist approach, the current president has an even grander scheme in mind -- to make France the undisputed European champion of nuclear energy. To achieve his ends, however, will require industrial engineering on a scale not seen since nationalisation under the first Mitterrand presidency in the early 1980s.

The pragmatic Mr. Sarkozy seems prepared to cut a deal with the Germans that would mean France giving up to Germany its long-held ambition of leading the European aerospace industry. In return, Germany must be willing to surrender its own ambitions in the energy sector to the French. In practice, this means handing over leadership of EADS to the Germans and the withdrawal of Siemens from France’s Areva nuclear group.

It is only an idea being bandied about in the highest circles, but serious enough to be worrying the French aerospace community. In effect, the plan could go like this. The troubled Alcatel-Lucent telecoms equipment group sheds its 21 per cent stake in Thales, the French defense electronics company, to EADS. This would help balance the EADS industrial portfolio, which is still too reliant on Airbus. Meanwhile, Dassault Aviation would regain its freedom from EADS by buying back the 46 per cent stake held by the Franco-German group.

EADS -- where the need to maintain an equal balance between French and German influence has been a source of permanent friction -- would then come firmly under German control. In turn, this would satisfy Berlin’s long cherished desire to re-establish Germany as a leading aerospace nation.

The price for obtaining leadership of the European aerospace industry will be lifting the German obstacles to Mr. Sarkozy’s grand nuclear plan. In particular, Siemens would have to pull out of Areva, clearing the way for a merger between Areva and Alstom -- the French heavy engineering group and builder of power turbines that was rescued by Mr. Sarkozy’s vigorous intervention when he was finance minister a few years ago.

Mr. Sarkozy believes this would anchor French leadership in the nuclear industry and in the booming energy sector in a lasting and more profound way.

The sad thing about this proposed Franco-German split is that it eloquently shows that cross-border industrial co-operation between the countries does not work. Moreover, the real expertise in aviation lies far more on the French than the German side. Under the circumstances, it seems only fair to ask whether such a division of industrial spoils is really in Europe’s broader interests in the longer term.

Stéphane Courbit, the French whiz-kid television producer who introduced the "Big Brother" reality TV program to France as "Loft Story," has persuaded an impressive if somewhat unusual trio of investors to back his latest venture. The Agnelli family holding IFIL, the Italian publisher De Agostini, and Bernard Arnault, the French luxury goods tycoon, are stumping up 42.5m euros ($66m) each for large stakes in Magna Capital Entertainment (MCE).

This new TV format company will be taking on Endemol -- the much larger TV production group and original maker of "Big Brother." For there seems to be some settling of old scores between Mr. Courbit and Endemol. The Frenchman was once the boss of Endemol France and tried to acquire the group when Telefónica decided to sell it last year. But the Spanish telephone company finally sold the TV producer to another lofty trio -- Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset TV group, Goldman Sachs, and Endemol’s original founder, Dutch entrepreneur John de Mol.

With his new financial backers, Mr. Courbit wants to act as an industry consolidator by picking up other European TV production companies. The idea is to distribute all this content across a range of media -- not just TV, but also the internet and mobile telephones.

His investors clearly believe there is good money to be made in this business. John Elkann, the grandson of the late Giovanni Agnelli, who was enthroned as chairman of the family holding last week, said demand for such content was continuing to grow in Europe.

It seems quite natural for Messrs Berlusconi and de Mol to invest in producing popular TV shows, even if they are of somewhat doubtful taste. The same cannot be said of Mr. Arnault or the young Agnelli heir. Surely they should weigh up carefully whether hitting the jackpot in a dumb TV game show is worth the risks to their gold-plated business reputations.