The French government has proposed buying key assets of Atos, the heavily indebted technology company, because Paris wants to keep them in national hands.
The state wants to purchase three strategic parts of Atos: super calculators for quantum computing, which are used by the French army for the country’s nuclear weapons programme; secure communications tech also utilised by the military; and certain cyber security assets.
Amid concerns in Paris that foreign investors, including hedge funds, could gain control of Atos in an upcoming restructuring of its €3.9bn debt load, finance minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday that the state had sent a non-binding letter of intent to the French company about purchasing the assets.