The French Finance Ministry on Thursday denied that its minister, Thierry Breton, had ever called for a rebalancing of French and German shareholdings in Airbus parent EADS.
The comments came after a senior German government official said Breton had called on Wednesday on French radio for the shareholding to be rebalanced from 50-50 to 60-40 in France's favour and said Germany rejected the idea. The Finance Ministry said Breton had never made any such comments and had only discussed the origins of the pact in the radio interview.