Some three decades or so ago, the Compagnie Générale d’Electricité was France’s answer to America’s two big conglomerates – General Electric and ITT. Its legendary chairman Ambroise Roux and his successor Georges Pebereau (brother of Michel, the current chairman of BNP-Paribas) were among the country’s most influential corporate power brokers. The group made everything from power turbines, transatlantic liners, railway locomotives and carriages to telephone switches, cables and other telecommunications equipment.

Its two principal constituents were Alstom and Alcatel. Much later, after the group’s privatisation, these two corporate sisters were split. Alstom soon became the poor relation to Alcatel. Indeed, the engineering giant stared bankruptcy in the face five years ago as a result of a disastrous acquisition of ABB’s gas turbine business and problems in its shipbuilding activities.