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Groupama will raise 1.8 billion euros through asset sales, including a 44% stake in the group of real estate Silic and Eurocourtage GAN insurance broker, said on Monday in a source familiar with the matter.

The French mutual insurer wants to raise 800 million euros by the end of the year by selling its share in silica, which is now the subject of preliminary discussions with several companies of real estate and insurance, said the source.

Groupama is also looking to sell its subsidiary GAN Eurocourtage, which he expects at least one billion euros, she said.

The European Central Bank (ECB), against all odds, cut interest rates a quarter point Thursday, saying its new president that the eurozone could enter a recession "moderate" in late 2011.

Mario Draghi took office Tuesday, right in the maelstrom of the euro area with the return to the front of the stage of the Greek crisis and growing concerns about the ability of Italy, his home country, to take action necessary consolidation of public finances.

However, it has made no commitment on increased purchases of government bonds on the secondary market by the ECB under the repurchase program (SMP) to provide assistance to countries such as Italy Spain.

"What we see now …

The powerful U.S. broker MF Global is set to the tune of 6.3 billion euros in European debt. This is the eighth largest bankruptcies in the United States since 1980. The shock wave will however be less than that caused by the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The U.S. broker MF Global, coming off a black week, filed for bankruptcy Monday, October 31.

The U.S. broker MF Global, in particular very difficult situation because of its exposure to European debt, filed for bankruptcy, according to court documents available on Monday. The company has submitted a New York court record placing it under the protection of U.S. bankruptcy law, the board felt that this operation was "in the interest of the company, its creditors, its shareholders and other stakeholders. " This would be the eighth largest bankruptcy in the United States since 1980.Among the largest creditors of MF Global include U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank German establishment and the media group CNBC.

MF Global, which appears as one of the first commodity dealers and products in the world, was in a very difficult position because of heavier than expected losses announced last week. Already battered on the market since the summer, the New York group had agreed on this occasion be exposed to the tune of $ 6.3 billion in European government debt, more than half in Italy and more one billion to Spain, two countries in the sights of investors.

"The biggest victim of the debt crisis"

Rating agencies have subsequently threatened to bring down its debt in the "speculative", which would have signed the end of its activities.Faced with speculation on the establishment, the action of the group was suspended earlier in the day on Wall Street and the New York branch of the Central Bank of the United States announced it would interrupt his dealings with the facility . According to the Wall Street Journal, talks with Interactive Brokers Group, which had planned for the weekend to buy the assets of the broker for approximately a billion dollars, were ultimately unsuccessful.

The bankruptcy of the group could send a shock wave in the markets, but its impact should not be as important as the impact of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. However, these are "the biggest victim so far of American debt crisis of Europe," said analyst Chris Low of FTN Financial before the announcement. "Fortunately the situation of the company is unique.

Wall Street opened slightly higher on Monday, the strong results announced by Caterpillar has somewhat overshadowed the skepticism of investors about the ability of the euro zone to resolve its debt crisis.

After the summit on Sunday, investors are eagerly awaiting the outcome of the next European meeting on Wednesday, including the question of the level of depreciation applied to debt securities held by the Greek private sector.

"We assume that the agreements will be announced in the coming days," said Peter Boockvar, market strategist at Miller Tabak & Co.

In early trade, the Dow Jones gained 0.29% to 11,843.15 points.The Standard & Poor's, wider, taking 0.33% to 1242.34 points while the Nasdaq composite gained 0.45% to 2649.43.

The beautiful performance as Caterpillar, up about 5% at the opening, supports the trend.

The world's largest earth-moving machinery and equipment for the mining industry reported Monday a record turnover and a 44% jump in profit in the third quarter, well above analysts' expectations.

Google loses the title, however, 0.45%. The group spoke with at least two private equity investment opportunity to help finance a transaction to buy the core business of its competitor Yahoo (1.97%), reports the Wall Street Journal, citing a source familiar with the matter.

France and Belgium flew Tuesday to rescue Dexia, while the scenario of a dismantling of the Franco-Belgian bank, weakened by the financial crisis and in particular its exposure to Greece, is gaining credibility.

Placement, the day before, on negative watch Dexia's debt by Moody's, due to concerns of rating agency on the group's liquidity and access to bank refinancing, has accelerated the process.

Dexia shares had lost up to 38% in Tuesday morning, reaching its lowest historical levels, then some limit its losses in the afternoon.

The stock closed lower by 22.46% to 1.01 euros while the index of European banks, although hit by new fears over Greek sovereign debt, has limited its losses to 4.02%.The stock has lost nearly 60% since the beginning of the year, bringing its market capitalization to less than two billion euros.

Emergency meeting, the board of directors of the bank commissioned the night of Monday to Tuesday the CEO, Pierre Mariani, so that it addresses the structural problems of the group, three years after a first plan Rescue audience of over six billion euros, which enabled Dexia to avoid bankruptcy.

The National Federation of Belgian union employees (CNE) said Tuesday it had learned of a decommissioning project at Dexia in several separate entities, which would threaten 150 jobs within the bank holding company.

Several French and Belgian politicians spoke publicly on Tuesday proposed creation of a "bad bank", a separate defeasance structure where the bond portfolio would be stationed at risk for the bank, amounting to some 100 billion euros .

"We need to look at how to change this group.We must remove all the dangerous parts of the bank, this is where the state guarantees come into play – that's what we call a 'bad bank' – then we can give guarantees to customers that if they are depositors or solicitors credit, "said Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders in an interview with television channel RTL.

SUPPORT OF CENTRAL BANKS

In a joint statement, Didier Reynders and his French counterpart Francois Baroin committed and that the two states make "their guarantee to funds raised by Dexia."Central banks in both countries have also made their support for Dexia and stressed that the bank's customers had no reason to withdraw their money at the box office.

The creation of a new French bank – which would lean part of the portfolio of loans to local Dexia to those of the Deposit and the Post Bank – is also under consideration.

This funding could be organized in partnership between the Deposit and the Postal Bank."This may in particular through the resumption of activities of Dexia in this area," he told Reuters a source close to the CDC.

A meeting of the Investment Committee of the Supervisory Board of CDC to be held Wednesday, but there is no evidence that the project is complete enough to be formally introduced.

According to the rapporteur general of the UMP Senate Finance Committee, Philippe Mariani, confirming that such a project is under consideration for funding local government does not inject money directly in the operation .

However, the hypothesis of a sale to another Dexia European banking group, on the model of Fortis sold to BNP Paribas, has not favored by analysts, investors, stressing that Dexia is not salable in the state.

The Dexia Group is mainly composed of a retail bank in Belgium, a private bank in Luxembourg, the pole of financing local authorities in France and banking Denizbank in Turkey.Maintaining this "nugget" of Turkey within the scope of the bank as well as the division's management, may seem equally uncertain.

THE FATE OF MINORITY

The question of a recapitalization by the States, would constitute a de facto quasi-nationalization has not been formally excluded.

"Everything will depend on the scheme presented by the management of Dexia," said the Belgian Minister of Finance.

Barely mentioned, the new rescue plan for Dexia, which would be the first bank in Europe victim of the crisis of sovereign debt, has prompted reactions from representatives of minority shareholders of Dexia.

The consulting firm shareholders Deminor has insisted in an open letter to shareholders to be consulted before any decision..

A speech relayed by the chairman of the Finance Committee of the French National Assembly, the Socialist Jerome Cahuzac, who also considered that the shareholders of the Franco-Belgian bank should be involved in resolving this crisis.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has announced that it would discuss at its meeting Wednesday of the situation of Dexia and, more generally, problems of financing in the euro area.

Extension or not of austerity measures, private participation in the background of Greek and multiplication fund to support the euro area will be central to discussions of EU finance ministers next week, even if no decision is expected on these records.

Met Monday and Tuesday in Luxembourg, ministers should also initiate discussion on strengthening the governance of the euro area in anticipation of a summit of leaders of the single currency on October 18 in Brussels.

"The recession alarms began to ring in a number of countries in the euro area and the debate on whether or not to extend fiscal austerity measures will be a common thread to the summit on 17 and 18 October, "said a senior source within the euro area.

"This will be the discussion of the next two weeks," added the source, adding that the discussion would focus on the revaluation of the conclusions of EU summit of 2009 which had then asked the bloc to put an end to measures to support the economy to engage in an accelerated phase of consolidation of public finances.

A second source said the meetings Monday and Tuesday would open a political sequence of one month to the G20 summit in Cannes in early November, where it will be then for the major world powers to agree on a message common support for global economic activity.

"The message next week will be divided into three parts: one, the euro area should continue on the path of fiscal consolidation, two, member states must implement structural reforms to stimulate growth, three, in some countries there are margins to take a break from the austerity and let the automatic stabilizers, "said the source.

Germany, the only country in the euro area have such leeway, and whose size would allow him to have a ripple effect, however, already indicated that it did not intend to go down this road.

GREEK PLAN

The question of the participation of major banks and European insurers in the background of aid to Greece should also dominate the agenda, while the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou was in Berlin and Paris this week to take stock of the situation in his country.

The agreement of 21 July on the support plan for involving the private sector at 50 billion euros, including through an exchange of current Greek bonds against future carry a discount of 21% but also additional guarantees provided by the countries of the euro area.

Athens, however, just to collect the 90% minimum participation of the private sector she wanted to accept the plan and, according to several sources, deteriorating market conditions in recent weeks has increased the cost of the guarantees offered by governments, casts doubts about the implementation of the program in its current form.

"We are not far from the threshold of 90%. In fact, we're almost there.So we do not think the question is to review the private sector, "said one source.

She said that in case of difference between the expected participation of banks and the finally obtained, it is also possible to further explore the option of repurchase by the Greek state's own obligations to a value lower than their face value, thereby lowering the level of debt.

However, this issue should continue to be discussed during the next two weeks and no decision is expected before another meeting of the Eurogroup on 13 October and peaks of 17 and 18 October.

Multiplication of the EFSF

Finally, ministers should also consider the question of extending the power of the fire fund to support the euro area (EFSF), although again no decision is expected in the next two weeks.

The euro area is trying to find a way to more effective use of 440 billion euros available to the EFSF to demonstrate to financial markets that has a size sufficient to stabilize bond yields Spanish and Italian – a task currently provided by the European Central Bank.

But the euro-zone countries want to wait that Slovakia has ratified the agreement of July 21 before opening formal debate.

"This is not the question of when.And besides, if the agreement of July 21 is implemented in its entirety, this question becomes irrelevant, "said one source.

On Friday, Economy Minister German Philipp Rösler has also said that the Bundestag does not seem willing to leverage the fund Thursday after approving the expansion of its prerogatives.

The airline Lufthansa has announced it will order 12 new aircraft, two Airbus A380s and one Airbus A330-300 for about $ 1 billion at list prices.

Lufthansa, which has already ordered 15 A380 a unit list price of € 275 million, is the most important Airbus customer for this type of very large aircraft.

The command of the German company also includes four Airbus A320 and five Embraer 195.

The Lufthansa share closed up 2.54% to 10.11 euros.

Dexia Bank has distributed to 25 billion euros of toxic loans to municipalities, departments, regions or hospitals according to a confidential listing revealed by Liberation. The additional cost for local governments amount to 3.9 billion.

1500 Five local authorities and public institutions have signed French toxic loans, according to a confidential document which the bank Dexia reported Wednesday Liberation.

The newspaper has obtained "a confidential file of the bank Dexia Credit Local (DCL) which lists 5,500 local governments and public institutions that have subscribed the famous toxic + loan + between 1995 and 2009." "This listing …certify that at the height of the bubble, DCL had distributed 25 billion euros for its customers, "said Liberation, which states that" as estimated by the bank, the additional cost of these loans was estimated at 3.9 billion at the end of 2009 "." This means that communities should pay a penalty of this order, "he says.

Dexia document "shows that everyone is involved: communities of both right and left large urban communities such as towns," said he. The newspaper cites the example of Antibes ", which had borrowed 60 million would pay 21 million in addition to that amount." "The department of the Loire regulations, provide a slate of 22 million in excess of 96 million of loans and toxic Dijon hospital should pay 31 million of interest on a loan of 111 million toxic," writes release. The site of everyday has posted the map of France of Commons infected.

The mechanisms of these toxic loans, the newspaper quoted the party loans to fixed rate and part variable rate "that is, for example indexed to the euro-Swiss franc." "When parity goes below a certain threshold, the rate increased in proportion," says Liberation. "With the crisis of the summer … because of the rise of the Swiss franc, many municipalities have seen their rates rise to 10 or 15%," he writes.

"The addition could still climb with loans running until 2025 or 2030," said Libe which concludes that "these toxic loans have not finished rotting community life. And the taxpayers, who bears a double threat: the increase of local taxes and a deficit of public services ".

The president of MEDEF, Laurence Parisot, expects a return to solid growth in the coming months, despite the debt crisis and fears about sovereign debt. Optimism in contrast to the macroeconomic indicators.

Stock market crisis, debt crisis, global economic slowdown … The unfavorable context did not prevent a wave of optimism blowing on the campus of Jouy-en-Josas, which takes its MEDEF Summer University for three days. The risk of recession is avoided and businesses could even find a solid growth over the next few months, has said Laurence Parisot, president of the employers' organization.

Optimism confirmed by business leaders who travel the paths of the campus: "We see no risk of stopping the activity in France.The companies have order books filled to recover in the coming months solid growth, "says Frédéric Bedin, president of CroissancePlus.

Comments seemingly surprising when growth stalled in Europe in the second quarter and the stock market tumbled over 20% this summer. "What happened in August is disconnected from fundamentals and microeconomic indicators goals," said Laurence Parisot, however.

In fact, the results of CAC 40 companies, which jumped 10% in the first half could almost prove them right. Still, this performance, which seems to defy the laws of economic gravity will benefit economy little French.The major groups are indeed picked up growth abroad as more than two-thirds of their sales are made outside the country, and especially outside of a Europe shaken by the crisis in Greece. And they will continue to invest in Latin America and Asia, where domestic markets are dynamic. So there they will continue to create jobs so that they destroy in France for several years.

So yes, it will not be a recession but it will not flattering growth we promise Bercy and the big bosses. Because after the failure of growth in the second quarter would have recorded the activity increased by 0.7% in the third and fourth quarter to take a goal so ambitious.

While manufacturers surveyed by INSEE to show them, particularly concerned about the coming months, the engine of investment could disappoint, especially since the financial meltdown that hit French banks could complicate access to credit. Job creation and wage increases will also trickle. As a result, consumption, the traditional mainstay of the French economy ticking over. Now with the braking world, this is not the trade that will give a boost to activity. The production of the French manufacturing industry has also collapsed in August for the first time since June 2009, according to the PMI manufacturing index released by the company Markit. Result: French growth should not exceed 1.5% this year and just 1% next year.

The President will spend a few hours in Beijing to meet with his Chinese counterpart. Program, Libya, European debt crisis, and the G20. Nicolas Sarkozy and Hu Jintao at the Elysee Palace, November 4, 2010.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived Thursday afternoon in Beijing for a visit of several hours of talks with his counterpart Hu Jintao on Libya and the crisis of sovereign debt.

Mr Sarkozy arrived shortly before 4:00 p.m. (0800 GMT) and was to meet with the Chinese head of state to 5:15 p.m. (9:15 GMT) for one hour at the Hall of the People, Tiananmen Square, it was said of French diplomatic source .

The two presidents will meet later for a working dinner at 6:30 p.m. (10:30 GMT), and Mr. Sarkozy, according to a press statement, will resume early in the evening fly to New Caledonia where it is to open Saturday the fourteenth Pacific Games.

Libya's sovereign debt crisis and the major issues of the G20, which is chaired by France to the Cannes summit in early November, should be the main topics of exchange between heads of state French and Chinese.