France

France’s finance minister has hailed substantial progress in Franco-German talks over a budget for the eurozone, signalling that an accord could be reached at a meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel this week, the Financial Times reported. But any deal between the French president and the German chancellor will fall short of Mr Macron’s initial integrationist ambition in terms of size and governance. After one last round of talks over a Franco-German road map for eurozone reforms, Bruno Le Maire, French finance minister, tweeted at the weekend that a “deal is now

Jean-Charles Naouri, chief executive and controlling shareholder of French retailer Groupe Casino, is seen in Parisian circles as the ‘godfather of retail’. In the three decades since the 69-year-old mathematician, former French civil servant and Rothschild banker moved into the private sector, he has constructed a retail empire spanning Europe to Brazil.

French retailer Casino has announced a €1.5bn asset disposal plan to help reduce the debt pile of the group, which has come under mounting pressure in the debt markets in recent weeks. Casino said on Monday after market close that it has identified non-core assets, including real estate assets, which could be sold for an estimated €1.5bn. It has flagged half of the disposals for 2018, and the other half early next year, and expects the asset disposals to help reduce its net debt in France by around €1bn by the end of 2018, the Financial Times reported.

French fashion house Carven, which dressed cabaret queen Edith Piaf, is filing for bankruptcy protection, a spokesman for the company, which employs 100 people, said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Carven, founded in 1945 by Carmen de Tommaso, took the world of fashion by storm in the 1950s with pink chequer dresses, counting among its most illustrious clients Parisian singer Piaf. “Carven is in default on payments and will on Wednesday be asking to be placed under bankruptcy protection of the Paris commercial court via receivership procedures,” a Carven spokesman said.

French factory production fell sharply in the first three months of the year, adding further weight to the mounting evidence of a slowdown in eurozone growth in the first quarter, the Financial Times reported. The quarter-on-quarter fall was led by a quarterly drop in the manufacturing of transport equipment, including car production, and a drop in oil refining. Manufacturing output dropped 1.8 per cent from the previous quarter, while overall industrial output fell 1.3 per cent, the French national statistics agency Insee said.

In the first year of his presidency, Emmanuel Macron has pushed business-friendly labor laws through Parliament, made it easier for companies to hire and fire, cut the wealth tax and decentralized collective bargaining, the International New York Times reported. Through it all, France’s most militant unions have resisted. His changes, which set out to reshape the way France’s economy and society work, are now facing increasing pushback from labor groups.

BNP Paribas SA and Societe Generale SA missed out on the trading gains that boosted earnings at some of their U.S. and European rivals in the first quarter, sending their shares tumbling, Bloomberg News reported. Trading income at BNP Paribas, the largest French lender, fell 15 percent as a drop in sales from fixed-income, currencies and commodities outweighed a gain in equities, the Paris-based bank said Friday. At Societe Generale, stock and bond trading both dropped.

A pair of investors in Delta Drone were fined a combined 600,000 euros ($520,000) for selling shares when they had non-public information in 2014 about the company’s financial difficulties, Bloomberg News reported. The Autorite des Marches Financiers fined company co-founder Frederic Serre -- who’s been involved in a series of startups -- 200,000 euros on Tuesday for having sold a chunk of shares in the civil drone manufacturer after being told by the chief executive officer the firm might become insolvent.

PSA Group no longer needs its 25 percent stake in its former logistics division Gefco, the maker of Peugeot and Citroen cars said on Monday after French newspaper Les Echos reported that the holding had been put up for sale, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. PSA "observes that Gefco's operating performance and diversified client portfolio mean that its capital stake is no longer necessary," a spokesman for the carmaker said. "No transaction has been identified at this stage," he added.

With much of the world apparently in the grip of Macron-mania, perhaps a note of caution is warranted, The Wall Street Journal reported. Without doubt the young French president is the man of the moment: In just eight months since taking office, Emmanuel Macron has transformed perceptions of his own country and electrified European politics. The French economy grew by 1.9% in 2017, the highest since 2011, while business confidence in December hit a 10-year high. Mr.