PARIS (Reuters) - Finance Minister Michel Sapin on Sunday defended the role of the French government in the failed merger talks between Orange (PA:ORAN) and Bouygues (PA:BOUY) Telecom.
Talks between the two companies, in which the government was heavily involved, aimed at creating a dominant French telecoms operator collapsed on Friday.
A deal would have ended a price war that has ravaged operators' margins since the arrival of Iliad (PA:ILD)'s Free Mobile low-cost services in 2012.
Asked on France 5 television whether his cabinet colleague, Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron, had been imposing too stringent conditions for the tie-up and was responsible for the deal's collapse, Sapin said: "The state has defended its own interests, just as it did with Renault (PA:RENA) and as it always will," he said, referring to another recent standoff between a the French carmaker and Macron.
Hinting at the fact Bouygues' demand for a valuation of 10 billion euros for its telecoms unit may have been too high, Sapin added:
"We're not supposed to accept whatever valuation is proposed, that is to say give more money to a company than what it deserves in a merger."
