Business France

While this Breton city sleeps, Thierry Bouvier is wide awake, making fragrant, mouthwatering magic. From the 36-year-old baker's skillful hands and imagination come 100 or so kinds of breads, pastries, croissants, brioches, cakes, tarts and other items, cooked over scented flames of oak and beech or painstakingly assembled in a "pastry laboratory." "For the Japanese, it's rice; for us French, it's bread," the affable Bouvier says.

Vivendi Universal narrowed its loss in the second quarter, but revenue gains came from its French-based pay-TV and telecom businesses, not the U.S. entertainment group expected to partner with General Electric Co.-owned NBC in the next few weeks. Vivendi reached a preliminary deal with GE this month to combine its movie studio, theme parks and TV business with NBC's network and cable channels, creating an entertainment giant valued at more than $40 billion.

Had he been born with a different last name, Andre Cointreau muses, "I'd probably be more relaxed. I imagine I'd be a teacher. I love teaching." But as the scion of two eminent French clans--Cointreau of Angers and Remy Martin of Cognac--and a man raised, as he explains, "in a 'spirits' environment," that wasn't an option. "On the one hand, the family name opened doors," Cointreau said. "You're not in the anonymous crowd when you're a Cointreau.

As companies around the world race to dominate the communications equipment business, investors have picked Lucent Technologies, Nortel Networks and the ambitious Cisco Systems as the clear front-runners. But there's also a promising sleeper in the mix: Alcatel of France. The once-stodgy phone equipment company in Paris has been gaining on its North American rivals, thanks to a survival strategy that is steadily doing the unthinkable: Americanizing the prized French firm.

During the last week in May and the first in June, the most exclusive business address in France is not the banking strip along the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, the corporate office towers in La Defense or even the Paris stock exchange, La Bourse.

The facade of the elegant Paris townhouse that serves as headquarters for Yves Saint Laurent's fashion empire is decked out with bunting and evergreen wreaths. But inside, Pierre Berge, who runs the business for his designer-partner, is oblivious to the holiday cheer. He is lamenting the decline of French culture over the past 12 years. And he finds enough blemishes to spoil anybody's Christmas mood.

Jean-Louis Dumas-Hermes is president of Hermes, the company founded by his great-great-grandfather, Thierry Hermes, 150 years ago. But he is neither the eldest great-great-grandson, nor the one who expressed the most interest in the family luxury-goods business, which is known around the world among the well-to-do. "It isn't," he said with an engaging smile, "a kingdom."

Brokers at the Paris Bourse are hoping that a "Petit Bang" of deregulation will make them more of a rival of the London Stock Exchange. But the changes taking effect today will not be as revolutionary as the deregulation of the London financial markets in October, 1986. The change across the English Channel was dubbed the "Big Bang" as it ushered in a much more competitive environment overnight by opening Britain's market to outsiders and doing away with fixed commissions on stock transactions.

She is university-educated, well-spoken and exquisitely polite, but citizens such as Beatrice, an auburn-haired Parisian who finds herself without steady work as she faces middle age, are making the French government tremble these days. On Tuesday, the unemployed Frenchwoman and thousands like her were in the streets, demanding a less precarious present and a more secure future.

Can a nation that worships Jerry Lewis and Mickey Rourke really teach America a thing or two about industrial policy? Mais oui, mon ami . . . particularly if you're interested in how not to do it. Consider Groupe Bull, France's state-sponsored computer giant. To call Bull the "Jerry Lewis of global computing companies" would be unfair. For one, Lewis is a much better performer. For another, he has never cost French taxpayers billions of francs.

To do business across Europe, bigness undeniably helps. But in many industries, size is no substitute for local market savvy and production facilities. And the advent of the single currency won't alter that or entice French consumers to act like Germans. "The question of location is still very important in Europe," said Roland Rick-Lenze, president and general director of Trilux, a family-owned German lighting manufacturer. "Americans are always a little bit naive on this question.

She is university-educated, well-spoken and exquisitely polite, but citizens such as Beatrice, an auburn-haired Parisian who finds herself without steady work as she faces middle age, are making the French government tremble these days. On Tuesday, the unemployed Frenchwoman and thousands like her were in the streets, demanding a less precarious present and a more secure future.

In a head-on challenge to U.S. efforts to economically hobble Iran, a French-led consortium has signed a $2-billion investment deal to develop a giant natural gas field in the Persian Gulf. The United States reacted swiftly Monday, saying it will take action if the deal violates U.S. law. "We regret this decision by [French energy giant] Total. We will investigate whether this violates the embargo law. We will apply the law," State Department spokesman James P.

In its most important decision since taking office last month, France's left-wing government announced Monday that it will slap new tax surcharges on big business to help plug a widening budget deficit and qualify for the single European currency next year. Under the $5.3-billion deficit-reduction package, government spending will also be cut by $1.7 billion, including the reduction of $330 million in credits earmarked for the Ministry of Defense.

While this Breton city sleeps, Thierry Bouvier is wide awake, making fragrant, mouthwatering magic. From the 36-year-old baker's skillful hands and imagination come 100 or so kinds of breads, pastries, croissants, brioches, cakes, tarts and other items, cooked over scented flames of oak and beech or painstakingly assembled in a "pastry laboratory." "For the Japanese, it's rice; for us French, it's bread," the affable Bouvier says.

Had he been born with a different last name, Andre Cointreau muses, "I'd probably be more relaxed. I imagine I'd be a teacher. I love teaching." But as the scion of two eminent French clans--Cointreau of Angers and Remy Martin of Cognac--and a man raised, as he explains, "in a 'spirits' environment," that wasn't an option. "On the one hand, the family name opened doors," Cointreau said. "You're not in the anonymous crowd when you're a Cointreau.

To do business across Europe, bigness undeniably helps. But in many industries, size is no substitute for local market savvy and production facilities. And the advent of the single currency won't alter that or entice French consumers to act like Germans. "The question of location is still very important in Europe," said Roland Rick-Lenze, president and general director of Trilux, a family-owned German lighting manufacturer. "Americans are always a little bit naive on this question.

These are troubled times in the haute couture industry. The spring-summer shows will open here Saturday as scheduled, but attendance is expected to be down by as much as 50% because of terrorism fears. And even before Desert Storm, the threat of war in the Persian Gulf affected sales in the French couture houses. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August, business from Arab countries--Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, among them--dropped dramatically.

The facade of the elegant Paris townhouse that serves as headquarters for Yves Saint Laurent's fashion empire is decked out with bunting and evergreen wreaths. But inside, Pierre Berge, who runs the business for his designer-partner, is oblivious to the holiday cheer. He is lamenting the decline of French culture over the past 12 years. And he finds enough blemishes to spoil anybody's Christmas mood.

During the last week in May and the first in June, the most exclusive business address in France is not the banking strip along the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, the corporate office towers in La Defense or even the Paris stock exchange, La Bourse.