Segault could remain, or return to being, a French company. This subcontractor company for the nuclear weapons industry is coveted by an American group. To avoid this, the government “will place a veto” to oppose “a loss of operational control,” the Minister of the Armies Sébastien Lecornu announced Tuesday in the Assembly.
During the debates on the 2024-2030 military programming bill, the minister mentioned, without giving details, a “device” that makes it possible to block “a certain number of foreign investments in France” in strategic sectors.
The minister responded to the deputy RN Laurent Jacobelli, author of an amendment, rejected, on “protection against acts of depredation and foreign interference” in companies involved in the national defense industry.
“Surveillance” for a “strategic company”
Segault, based near Paris and which indicates on its site that it will employ 80 employees, notably supplies the Naval Group, a French naval defense manufacturer, with valves for the boiler rooms that equip French nuclear submarines.
Singer of “made in France”, former minister Arnaud Montebourg had asked the government on April 11 to “prohibit” the takeover of Velan, a Canadian company, Segault’s parent company, by the US group Flowserve Corporation.
The government then expressed its “vigilance” for a “strategic company” by mentioning the “foreign investment control procedure.” Sébastien Lecornu’s announcement was well received on the floor, including by LFI Aurélien Saintoul.
A total of 194 foreign investment projects in a series of sectors considered “sensitive” did not come to fruition in 2022, while the Ministry of Economy authorized 131 of them, more than half of them with conditions “to guarantee the preservation of national interests”.
Source: BFM TV
