Dassault has come clean. Everybody knew that the French aerospace group had been eyeing Alcatel-Lucent’s 20.8 per cent stake in Thales, the defence electronics group.

Yet Dassault continued to deny publicly any interest in becoming the core industrial shareholder in Thales as part of a broader consolidation of the French defence sector. Indeed, Dassault even suggested it would sell the 5 per cent stake it already held.