France: le big bang. (deregulation, privatization and denationalization of French capital markets)

FRANCE LE BIG BANG

FRANCE LE BIG BANG

France’s capital markets, for long among the most regulated in the world, are at last being exposed to international competition. Banks, brokers, and industrial corporations are leaving the protective umbrella of state administration.

The Finance Ministry has proposed new markets in certificates of deposit, treasury bonds, commercial paper, and futures; and it is replacing the system of government-set lending limits with the notion of free money markets. It’s even nibbling away at the currency controls that have frightened away international investors, and it has set in train a reorganization of the bourse (stock exchange) opening up to banks what has traditionally been the preserve of a comfortable coterie of agents de change (brokers).

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