PARIS (Reuters) – France is considering taking a stake in Sanofi’s Opella arm, said finance minister Antoine Armand, to allay concerns that the French drugmaker’s plans to sell a 50% stake in Opella to a U.S. private equity firm could result in job cuts.
Trade unions and opposition politicians have expressed unease over Sanofi’s decision to sell a controlling 50% stake in Opella – whose brands include painkiller Doliprane – to U.S. private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice.
They fear job cuts and say the sale could impact France’s economic sovereignty.
Antoine Armand told the French parliament on Tuesday that the government was looking at all options regarding Opella, including the state being on Opella’s board of directors.
“I will tell you quite clearly, nothing is off the table, nothing is excluded,” he said.
“I am in the process of examining the French state having a possible presence on the board of directors, as well as taking a stake in the company, because the sovereign, industrial strategy we have built up over the past few years is not something to be bargained over,” he added.
Armand had also said earlier this week that the French government wanted guarantees from Sanofi that production of Doliprane would stay in France.
(Reporting by Bertrand Boucey and Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten)
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