PARIS, March 19 (Reuters) - The office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy denied reports it would replace the head of state-owned nuclear reactor group with Yazid Sabeg, an Algerian-born businessman with a limited industrial background.
'These are groundless rumours,' Sarkozy's office said on Friday when asked about reports by news websites Wansquare and Mediapart that Sabeg was in line for the job.
The websites said the government would announce the appointment of Sabeg, made a commissioner for diversity by Sarkozy in 2008, around the middle of April after Sarkozy receives a report making proposals on reorganising the French nuclear industry, the websites said.
The prospect of this report -- called after its writer Francois Roussely, a former head of French nuclear power giant EDF -- has rekindled rumours that the dismissal of Areva Chief Executive Anne Lauvergeon is imminent.
Areva has declined to comment on the reports.
Lauvergeon, who has headed Areva since its inception nearly a decade ago, has reportedly angered Sarkozy with delays and cost overruns in a landmark Finnish nuclear project, the abrupt departure of Siemens from a reactor venture, and the loss by a French consortium of a $40 billion deal in Abu Dhabi.
The very public spat between Lauvergeon and new EDF chief Henri Proglio, started after he said the creation of Areva was 'probably an error', has also made the French president irate. Political sources have said Proglio is close to Sarkozy.
'Recent public disputes between the heads of these companies have been unacceptable,' Sarkozy told Le Figaro last week.
'We have appointed a very good industrialist at the head of EDF. We are currently working on the Areva issue, which is an extremely complex one,' he said, a comment that has been interpreted as a shot at Lauvergeon.
Although most analysts now expect Lauvergeon to go, they have said Sarkozy will likely wait until the end of her mandate in June 2011 and then replace her with an executive with strong industrial credentials.
Some analysts said they doubted Sabeg, who worked for a French construction midcap in the 1980s before founding real estate broker Quadral in 1990, would fit this criteria.
(Reporting by Marie Maitre and Yann Le Guernigou; editing by Karen Foster) Keywords: AREVA LAUVERGEON/ Keywords: AREVA LAUVERGEON/=2 (marie.maitre@reuters.com; +33 1 4949 5331; Reuters messaging: marie.maitre.reuters.com@reuters.net) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.
'These are groundless rumours,' Sarkozy's office said on Friday when asked about reports by news websites Wansquare and Mediapart that Sabeg was in line for the job.
The websites said the government would announce the appointment of Sabeg, made a commissioner for diversity by Sarkozy in 2008, around the middle of April after Sarkozy receives a report making proposals on reorganising the French nuclear industry, the websites said.
The prospect of this report -- called after its writer Francois Roussely, a former head of French nuclear power giant EDF -- has rekindled rumours that the dismissal of Areva Chief Executive Anne Lauvergeon is imminent.
Areva has declined to comment on the reports.
Lauvergeon, who has headed Areva since its inception nearly a decade ago, has reportedly angered Sarkozy with delays and cost overruns in a landmark Finnish nuclear project, the abrupt departure of Siemens from a reactor venture, and the loss by a French consortium of a $40 billion deal in Abu Dhabi.
The very public spat between Lauvergeon and new EDF chief Henri Proglio, started after he said the creation of Areva was 'probably an error', has also made the French president irate. Political sources have said Proglio is close to Sarkozy.
'Recent public disputes between the heads of these companies have been unacceptable,' Sarkozy told Le Figaro last week.
'We have appointed a very good industrialist at the head of EDF. We are currently working on the Areva issue, which is an extremely complex one,' he said, a comment that has been interpreted as a shot at Lauvergeon.
Although most analysts now expect Lauvergeon to go, they have said Sarkozy will likely wait until the end of her mandate in June 2011 and then replace her with an executive with strong industrial credentials.
Some analysts said they doubted Sabeg, who worked for a French construction midcap in the 1980s before founding real estate broker Quadral in 1990, would fit this criteria.
(Reporting by Marie Maitre and Yann Le Guernigou; editing by Karen Foster) Keywords: AREVA LAUVERGEON/ Keywords: AREVA LAUVERGEON/=2 (marie.maitre@reuters.com; +33 1 4949 5331; Reuters messaging: marie.maitre.reuters.com@reuters.net) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.