French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday he had moved to buy the “sovereign activities” of debt-laden French tech giant Atos and prevent it from being taken over by foreign capital.
Atos, which operates supercomputers for France’s nuclear deterrent, has contracts with the French military and is an IT partner for this year’s Paris Olympics, is in the doldrums with debts of nearly 5 billion euros.
The company’s financial woes have raised questions about cybersecurity at the marquee sporting event, which runs from July 26 to August 11, for which the company manages more than 300,000 certifications.
Le Maire told television channel LCI that he sent a letter of intent with a non-binding action this weekend “with the aim of acquiring all the sovereign activities of Athos”.
This would avoid strategic activities “falling into the ownership of foreign actors,” he added.
His office said the activities involved include supercomputers, servers powered by artificial intelligence and quantum computing, and cybersecurity products.
The two companies have combined annual sales of 900 million euros ($962 million), out of the Atos Group’s total of approximately 11 billion euros, and employ approximately 4,000 staff, most of whom are based in France. The office added that there are.
The French government has already pledged a 50 million euro loan to Atos to stabilize the company and acquired preference shares that give it oversight rights over its important big data operations.
Lemaire said he hopes other French actors will join the movement. His office said it has been in discussions with industry groups for several weeks.
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