Martin Vial, director of the APE, told a parliamentary commission that a final decision on whether to divest from ADP would be presented to parliament during the spring of this year.

ADP has long been tipped as one of the prime candidates to kick off a wave of privatisations as the government seeks to raise money for a new fund to finance innovation.

Based on current prices, the government's 50.6 percent stake in ADP is worth some 8 billion euros ($9.9 billion).

($1 = 0.8091 euros)

(Reporting by Cyril Altmeyer; Writing by Luke Baker, editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)