ALTICE PARIS (Reuters) - European telecoms group Altice's (>> Altice) bid for Bouygues Telecom (>> BOUYGUES) risks creating a French operator "too big to fail" that could threaten jobs, French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said on Monday, renewing opposition to the multi-billion-euro deal.
Macron told journalists he was not opposed to France having three telecoms operators rather than the current four, but he doubted whether the Altice deal would be good for consumers, jobs and investment in the sector given the company's history of using huge amounts of debt.
"All the synergies which could justify such a price are in fact about killing jobs," Macron said. "At the end of the day, is it good for the economy? The answer is 'no'."
Neither party has disclosed the value of the offer, but sources told Reuters at the weekend that Patrick Drahi, the controlling shareholder in Altice, had submitted a bid in recent weeks worth around 10 billion euros ($11.3 billion) in cash.
Macron said that there was a risk that the deal would create a telecoms operator that was so big that it would require a costly state bailout if too much debt were used to finance it.
"I don't want to create a too-big-to-fail player with such a leverage and it's my role to ... deliver such a message," Macron said.
He added that the French state had means to block the deal, including a law named after him that the government is in the process of forcing through parliament.
He declined to say whether he was prepared to use those powers to block the deal, however, and said he would consider the next step once Bouygues decides on Tuesday whether to accept the offer.
(Reporting by Leigh Thomas; Editing by James Regan)
