The French government plans to open Lotto and scratch card game capital to private investment in the spring. Is this reasonable?
Emmanuel Macron has promised to create a fund of €10 billion to finance the Française des Jeux (FDJ) which will more or less rely on partial privatization to fuel the operation.
In a few weeks, the government could announce the privatization of the FDJ. BNP Paribas has been commissioned to study a transfer of the shares by the State. Several scenarios can be envisaged, including decreasing state ownership to less than 50% of the total capital of the FDJ.
It is hard to understand why the state would distance itself from such a source of income. Emmanuelle Auriol, Professor of Economics at the Toulouse School of Economics, deplores a transaction which he characterizes as guided by “short term” thinking and the “need for cash” in his critique presented herein.
Full article: Ouest-France (French)
