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The numbers are staggering. In Germany, the financial damage caused by cyber crime amounted to 61.5 million euros in 2010, according to figures released Thursday by the criminal police and the Federation of high tech Bitkom. This is equivalent to an increase of 66% over the previous year. As the United States, the FBI estimated the cost of crime to some digital $ 560 million in 2009. A world-wide, according to McAfee, cyber crime would have generated some 1000 billion in 2008, about 1.64% of world GDP for that year. Remains that, without minimizing the scale of the scourge, these figures are perplexing.

Many experts give little credence to these studies because most of them emanate from computer security specialists. For the record, other than McAfee is the world number two antivirus software.In addition, "less than 10% of companies report having experienced cyber attacks," said Jean-Paul Pinte, senior lecturer in strategic intelligence at the Catholic University of Lille. According to the specialist risk management and cyber terrorists of enterprises affected societies fear the bad publicity due to media coverage of cyber attacks.

Jean-Paul Pinte, "we know nothing of the legacy and financial losses suffered indirectly." He added: "If an attack is to relieve a company of sensitive information, loss of data will generate multiple costs, such as loss of competitiveness, or the upgrading of security."

"Hard to get a comprehensive view"

Director of the National Security Information Systems (Anssi), Patrick Pailloux abounds in this direction."When a site is the victim of an attack, he takes as an example, it is first blocked, causing a shortfall. Then we must add additional costs to set up a hotline strengthened. "And on the practices of industrial espionage initiated via the Internet," How can we measure in terms of losses that a competitor could steal ?, "asks the director of Anssi. Clearly, "it is difficult to get a comprehensive view of the problem," says he.

Despite these criticisms, these figures are held up to each event on Cybercrime. However dated, the estimated one trillion dollars of McAfee is authoritative. Last May, it appeared even in the "reminder" of the fourth Parliamentary Forum on Information Society in Geneva, on the initiative, among others, the United Nations.Trompe-l'oeil, the text quoted a source stamped Europol, the pharmacy police intergovernmental European Union, which actually refers to the numbers … the software publisher.

If governments do not hesitate to chopping these impressive figures, it is often necessary to legitimize, but costly reinforcement of their agencies against digital piracy. Or clear, make the pill easier to swallow from taxpayers. In January, the UK has estimated that cyber attacks cost him a whopping 27 billion pounds per year (32.2 billion euros) in a government study.An amount (by far) greater than the harm claimed by the United States … A few days before making public figure, London has announced the release of 650 million pounds over four years to "strengthen its cyber security "…

International cooperation in the war-horse

Without waving the national figures, France is no exception, as evidenced by the announcement of piracy Bercy in March. Patrick Pailloux it was for the state to "lead by example" to encourage companies to report piracy they wipe. The Director of Anssi said that 150 computers were then infiltrated by hackers to steal documents for the French presidency of the G20. "We were able to counter the threat," he goes on, noting that thirty experts have been mobilized for two months to "clean up" more than 130,000 positions in the Department.A communication that is timely, since Anssi plans to double its workforce (360 employees) by 2013.

Such methods may be distasteful, but experts and politicians agree: there is no time to waste on the face of digital crime. "For a long time in France, we thought that hacking and computer intrusions were not really dangerous, says Jean-Paul Pinte. But now we know that it's become a real business, and that the threat can come from anywhere: a simple USB key, hard drives or even photocopiers, which, connected to the Internet can become the target of hackers ".

Therefore, international cooperation, which requires significant resources, is "a priority," insists Patrick Pailloux. And for good reason: "90% of attacks are international," says the director of Anssi.In the columns of The Tribune, Laurent Wauquiez, Minister for European Affairs, recently recalled that a hacker "can be installed in Latvia, while in France to intervene through a Canadian site." He even considers urgent that Europe adopts "a kind of cyber-FBI-backed Europol" to stem the digital crime. And one last statistic to shoot, ensuring that "a user of thirty lost money in Europe over the last year" due to a hacker.

Businesses, prey selection

Having surveyed 45 U.S. companies in 2010, the Ponemon Institute found that on average, the financial damage caused by hackers and data theft was $ 3.8 million.Like that of McAfee, this figure is to be taken lightly, as though Ponemon shows his independence, his study was commissioned by ArcSight, a specialist in digital security. However, it appears that large groups are increasingly being targeted by hackers. Since the beginning of the year, the list of companies or institutions that have suffered cyberattacks has continued to grow. Sony has suffered more than ten attacks since mid-April, leading to theft of confidential data of more than 1 million customer accounts. Recently, Sega has had the same misfortune: the editor of the series of Sonic hedgehog found in mid-June have been stolen names, email addresses, birth dates and passwords of almost 1.3 million customers on its servers.Google or Citigroup also suffered cyber attacks.

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While the crucial talks between government and private creditors of Greece continued the last few hours across Europe, they rose sharply in Paris. Reportedly, the French Treasury and financial institutions have agreed on the night of Friday to Saturday on a proposal that they hope to win their European partners now. Important first step, a highly anticipated meeting of the IIR (International Institute of Finance), which groups 400 banks worldwide, will be held on Monday in Rome.

It will be remembered, European governments have launched negotiations Wednesday with the holders of Greek debt. They are seeking a contribution of banks, insurers and other pension funds to the tune of 30 billion euros, backed by a new extension of Europe and the IMF to Greece.So far, the proposal on the table was simple: the voluntary, private creditors agreed to reinvest in due proportion the debts repaid by Athens over the next three years in new loans Greek to 5 years. It is the "rollover". However, private capital, especially German, had requested that these new loans are guaranteed in one way or another by Europe. But Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, refused this demand, which is to transfer the responsibility of the public an additional part of the burden.

Hence the impasse. The problem for private financiers, is to pay a state that nothing says it will be out of trouble in five years, the plan has expired. Of course, under pressure from governments, banks and insurers could be convinced.But specifically, if the process is not perceived as voluntary, rating agencies may raise the flag of the "default" and the plan falls overboard because the ECB can no longer accept sovereign debt and stigmatized in the refinancing of Greek banks cash advance no fax.The French proposal is a parade, making the "rollover" both more attractive and relevant to them and to Athens, by lengthening maturities.

New loans to 30 years

In addition to the original proposal, a working group led by BNP Paribas, in fact, imagined an alternative, opening the opportunity to reinvest only 70% of amounts received in connection with the Greek borrowing fell 50% are allocated to Greek new loans issued this time in 30 years as to 20%, they are placed on what the financial call a "zero coupon", ie a fund invested in securities of high quality self-reinforcing through then cumulation of interests: the piggy bank somehow secures new borrowing Greek, as would have government guarantees.According to the discussions, these borrowings could be long carry an interest rate equivalent to that of Greece pays vis-à-vis its "rescuers" public, with the addition of a variable interest rate likely to be linked to an economic indicator Greek, such as GDP.

In any case, this alternative would yield less per creditor only 50% returned to the Treasury Greek but is likely to attract more people. And above all, by providing funding for 30 years, she pushes the horizon in part refunds for Athens. The French solution began circulating in the corridors of the European Council on Friday. "We received an initial favorable response," says a close case.

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The very demanding certification labels for timber such as the FSC would they about to be marginalized by European legislation is less restrictive? Some pose the question today. Ardent proponents of the regulation adopted by the EU is no shortage of arguments to suggest otherwise.

FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) was established in 1993 after the Earth Summit in Rio. It offers large forest operators to comply with a specification very strict on environmental issues, social and economic return for obtaining a quality label could make a difference on the European market. It now comprises some fifteen million ha in tropical forests, including five for the Congo Basin and almost three for the Republic of Congo alone."But today, Europe is imposing a traceability system which is only legal and therefore much less stringent than the certification systems," warns Dr. Clotilde Ngomba, the coordinator of the forest fund Basin Congo.

Launched in 2003, the European program that meets the acronym FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade process) "aims to curb the production and trade in illegal timber," says Alain Pénelon, regional adviser for COMIFAC (Commission Central African forests). With a goal involve the largest number of forest holdings. "We had reason to push the FSC large farms," ​​says Mark Benedict, director of the firm Terea, "but it is very restrictive and very expensive and small businesses can not follow him installment payday loans. FLEGT system is intended for them. "The World Bank, the loss of value due to illegal logging accounts for more than 10 billion dollars and the loss of revenue for governments, 5 billion.

Legality encouraged

The main measure of FLEGT aims at establishing a partnership between Europe and a producer. It specifies the criteria to ensure that timber imported into Europe is of legal origin. It provides traceability, verification systems … "The implementation of a FLEGT agreement may take three or four years," said Alain Pénelon. Such a delay until October, Parliament ratified a new law prohibiting the arrival on European soil or wood products from illegal logging. "This will be the operators in Europe to ensure this," said the specialist.This regulation will apply March 3, 2013.

"I do not think there is a risk of competition between the two systems," he says. "The same mechanisms are highly complementary," insists Emmanuel Heuse support of FLEGT Democratic Republic of Congo. "These two systems must grow together," he adds. Optimists hope that the first step then bring FLEGT timber operations to proceed towards certification. Over the legality will be encouraged, more forest will be protected. It is urgent: despite improvements since 2000, tropical deforestation is very high. It is 5.4 million ha per year, equivalent to the area of ​​Costa Rica.

The damage is done. Although the cucumber is more pronounced as carrier of the bacterium E. Slayer coli (EHEC), the bill is very heavy for the French vegetable growers. Consumers stay still images as well as tomato salad and a time alleged by Germany.

"Nothing in a week, we estimate our losses to 3 million euros," said Friday afternoon at Figaro Angelique Delahaye, president of Vegetables in France. She just finished consolidating losses estimated at national level by some 3,000 growers of cucumbers and tomatoes. "We're going to report these figures in the service of the Ministry of Agriculture in the context of the experts meeting in Brussels next Tuesday," she says.

Half of the losses on the production of cucumbers and half the tomatoes."We lost earlier this week a program to supply 500 600 tons of tomatoes to 1.10 euro per kilo from the German central purchasing or 550,000 to 660,000 euros less," says Pierre Diot, president of the AOP (Association producer organization) cucumbers and tomatoes, producer Mordelles, west of Rennes.

Brittany produces half of the tomatoes of the Hexagon, 30% from the Deep South and the rest of the Nantes region. "After a week of total absence of trade in vegetables, we are angry because we have no alternative but to destroy our production," said Louis Vinet representing growers Nantes, tripling affected free business cards.

Salads down 20%

However, it is too early to assess damage on sales of salad, vegetable of which the French are especially fond of this heat – they consume nearly 7 pounds per year -."The production is spread among a multitude of gardening and it is more difficult to gather the numbers," says Angelique Delahaye.

The only certainty in Rungis, Ile de France, the second producing region of the Hexagon salads, "salads sold volumes dropped 20% in a dynamic market, however, except of course the cucumbers fall of 80%," says Michel Lemelin, president of the union of wholesale fruit and vegetable market of Rungis.

In this difficult context, French producers can always relativize their misfortune by saying that the situation is worse elsewhere. Particularly in the Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish Federation of Producers exporting fruits and vegetables (FEPEX) estimated losses on Tuesday "to about 200 million euros per week" for the entire sector, citing a "domino effect" affecting other Spanish products."All fruits and vegetables were impacted by Spain. Fortunately in France strawberries, zucchini, eggplant and continue to sell, "relativize Angelique Delahaye.

To break this cycle, the European Ministers of Agriculture are scheduled to meet around 17 June in Luxembourg for a special meeting on the subject.

"Showcase in progress": the furniture is brand new still empty, but they already enthroned in the midst of the post office. Ready for mobile phones to be sold by the group on 23 May.

By embarking on the phone after so many others, with its offer Mobile Post, the group plays big. It is 2.4 million subscribers by 2016. But the battle looks tough because the market is already very competitive, so that all operators are preparing for the arrival of Free early 2012.

La Poste, which is expected on very competitive rates, will have to hit hard to differentiate, while operators have all forms of small entry-level starting around 7 euros a month, and they have put in place, under the leadership of government, "social tariffs" with 40 minutes and 40 SMS communications for less than 10 euros a month."The Post has dangled an attractive price. We will be vigilant that they are really, "says one at Bercy, worried that competition benefits the consumer directly.

This launch is also a gamble in terms of management. Because after asking the factors to help the transition to DTT, it will have to train postmen to sell mobile phone. Not so simple!

Shortly before the opening of Wall Street index futures Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq 100 retreated 0.51% respectively to 1302 and 0.67% points to 2293 points, suggesting an early session in the red. The Dow Jones was due in part to its decline from 0.41% to 12,149 points.

The day before, the U.S. stock market had entered into an indecisive session slightly higher. The results of the first quarter of JPMorgan, though strong, were certainly enthused the stock markets, by and of the Atlantic. But they also left Wall Street more lukewarm. The title JPMorgan also yielded 0.83% at closing."The outstanding consumer loans, down from 8.50% in the quarter were disappointing in this publication," suggested Christian Parisot at Aurel BGC.

Obama's speech and the Beige Book Fed's call for caution

Prudence markets, fueled by retail sales figures mixed, could also be explained by the expectation on Wednesday, after closing a speech of Barack Obama since the George Washington University, the preferred solutions for fight against debt and deficit. The U.S. president has proposed including more taxing wealthy households.Objective: to reduce the U.S. deficit of 4000 billion over 12 years.

The Beige Book Fed unveiled, also on Wednesday evening, has not reassured the markets: according to this highly anticipated release, "the Japanese disaster of 11 March will have a greater impact than expected on the U.S. economy , "because of disruptions in sales and production (especially on the East Coast and central United States)," says Franklin Pichard, Director Barclays Exchange payday loans guaranteed no fax.

If the activity has continued to improve in the United States, this improvement has been uneven from one region to another. Soaring commodity prices began to threaten corporate margins and consumer spending.According to the Fed, the housing market remains depressed, even if the labor market, however, is stronger than in February.

Producer prices and jobless claims

Side indicators, foreclosures in the United States are divided on the rise in March, said this Thursday, the specialist firm RealtyTrac, which are expected to grow further in the coming months. In total, 73,174 homes were seized by creditors in March, up 13% from February, according to figures from RealtyTrac.

On the agenda of the day, the producer prices for March will be announced at 14:30, at the same time that the registered unemployed.This Thursday and Friday, also held the ministerial meeting of the G20 in Washington.

Google and Hasbro unveil quarterly leursrésultats

On the corporate side, after Alcoa and JPMorgan, it is this Thursday, Googleet Hasbro unveil their accounts in the first quarter.

Zipcar, a U.S. car rental self-service, also announced Wednesday it fixed at $ 18 the price of the 9.7 million shares it plans to market Thursday, which would an IPO at some $ 164 million. This price action, revealed in a document released Wednesday by market authorities, beyond the range of 14 to 16 dollars advanced last week.

The negotiations have accelerated over the past week between Jean-Bernard Levy, CEO of Vivendi, and its counterpart Vittorio Colao, CEO Vodafone. The two sides finally reached an agreement Sunday to 7.75 billion euros plus the payment of a dividend of 200 million euros in the first half, Vivendi puts his hand on the 44% stake in SFR it does not already own. The transaction is expected to close in late June 2011. This sum values ​​SFR to 17.6 billion euros, or 6.2 times its EBITDA. A valuation standards-compliant transactions in the telecom sector.

With this transaction, Vivendi finally control the entire second French telecom operator who weighs 12.5 billion euros in sales and has 21 million mobile customers and 5,000,000 fixed customers."For the first time since the creation of SFR in 1987 by Generale des Eaux (Vivendi ancestor) that the second French operator has a single shareholder," said Jean-Bernard Levy, CEO of Vivendi. However, SFR and Vodafone will retain preferential trade agreements for three years. These agreements relate to roaming subscribers of SFR in France and beyond those of Vodafone when they travel to France. The agreement also covers joint management of major international clients. "Now more SFR may be present outside of France and develop new services for its customers," said Jean-Bernard Levy. However, Vodafone will not be the operator of Vivendi's holdings abroad as Morocco Telecom and GVT in Brazil. For these operations, "Vivendi will retain management," said Jean-Bernard Lévy

SFR occupies an important place in the Vivendi group.During the years of crisis in 2002 when the group collapsed under 32 billion euros of debt, he found his salvation by acquiring a majority stake in SFR from British Telecom for 4 billion euros. Thus, Vivendi could access the cash flow of its telephone subsidiary, which enabled him to honor the payment of its debt. SFR, Morocco Telecom and GVT, Vivendi telephony is clearly becoming a telecoms group. Its media activities: Canal +, Universal Music and Activision Blizzard are now a minority. However, the group intends to use the cash from SFR to strengthen it.

"Last but not negligible for Vivendi shareholders, this transaction will increase our annual profits, which allow us to increase the dividend for 2012," promises Jean-Bernard Levy. The current dividend is 1.40 euro.

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It was expected that the two "small" U.S. operators Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile (subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom) have joined forces to resist the pressure of the two "big", Verizon Wireless and AT & T.Bombshell: the giant AT & T, the number two market heavyweight 95.5 million customers, who captured the number four, T-Mobile for $ 39 billion.

AT & T should thus take the place of leading U.S. mobile phone he had lost to Verizon in early 2009, posting 129 million subscribers and a turnover of $ 80 billion in Mobile after the merger .

If AT & T, formerly incumbent U.S. broke out in 1984 by the court to give birth to "Baby Bells", and finally restored, starts the mega acquisition is that it is itself threatened by the emergence of New players: Net giants Apple and Google.

Faced with the explosion of mobile Internet created the success of smartphones, iPhone in mind, the telcos are obliged to invest massively scale their networks, but does not affect revenues. AT & T was the exclusive distributor of iPhone in the United States from 2007 to February 2011 made the bitter experience: back to the boom in mobile internet traffic, its congested networks had broken down in cities like San Francisco and New York, then being told the boss of AT & T that the iPhone was his "worst nightmare".Traffic on the network of AT & T has increased 8000% in four years and by 2015 it should be 8-10 times higher than in 2010.

"The race to size"

"The problem of operators today is to be paid for the huge investments they are forced to make their networks to support the explosion of data traffic," said Virginia Lazès, associate director of the bank Bryan Garnier. The answer is the race for size. It can rebalance their magnifying powers face the giants of the Net. On the one hand, with 130 million customers, AT & T will carry more weight in discussions with Apple, which often resemble a standoff.On the other hand, being larger, its business model becomes more relevant because it can generate synergies in investment and marketing. "

To address this bottleneck networks, AT & T has begun the deployment of 4th generation network (known as LTE). The acquisition of T-Mobile will save him time. "With additional capacity and frequency network, we can better meet the current requirements of our customers, build for the future and help achieve the objective of the President (Barack Obama) America connected a wireless and high- flow, "commented the CEO of AT & T, Randall Stephenson.

"The regulator should not oppose the FCC not to this level because there is a political will to accelerate the transition to 4G mobile broadband.The United States would indeed catch up in 2G/3G mobile compared to Asia and Europe, "said Stéphane Dubreuil, associate director of the firm Sia Council. A reverse pattern of France, where the regulator has pushed early 2012 arrival of a fourth operator, with Free? Do not forget that the U.S. has a plethora of regional operators (Alltel, TracFone, U.S. Cellular, MetroPCS, Cricket, Jump Mobile, Dobson Cellular, etc.). "In fact, the U.S. market was ultraconcurrentiel returns to normal and the French market was oligopolistic becomes competitive," says Virginia Lazès.

The CAC 40, which won in the 4000 points on Monday night, amid record oil prices and gasoline, returns to form on Tuesday: the index 0.32% to 4003.19 wins points in early trade. The DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange opened, it, up from 0.69% to 7211.06 points while the Footise London gained 0.31% over the closing Monday at 5,992.30 points .

Last night, Wall Street has yet suffered during the black gold but this morning, Asian stock markets have evolved around the equilibrium. Tensions in the oil market will settle down when in fact that Nigeria, Kuwait and the UAE will increase their oil production by April to offset higher prices that now exists as Libya comes into civil war with an additional 300,000 barrels per day, according to the Financial Times.This morning, oil prices let loose ground: in the electronic exchange of the night, a barrel of light sweet crude for April delivery yielded 1.41% to 103.95 dollars. That of Brent North Sea fell from 1.16% to 113.71 dollars.

French growth of 0.8% in first quarter

Side macroeconomic figures on Tuesday to watch: Bank of France said Tuesday forecast growth of 0.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) of France in the first quarter of this year in its monthly business survey. The survey on business climate shows a continued growth of industrial activity in February, but at a slower pace than in January, the indicator remained stable 110. The business climate indicator in services has increased in parallel from one point to 102.

Moreover, the trade deficit widened from France in January, to 5 fast payday loan no faxing.89 billion euros against 5.60 billion the previous month, seasonally adjusted data, the Customs said Tuesday.

In Germany, it will follow at noon, industrial orders in January (Destatis). No statistics are expected this afternoon from the United States.

Scor: net profit up 13%

At the Paris Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning, Michelin took the top ranking (1.99% to 58.89 euros) the Cac 40, followed by Accor (1.25%) and Axa (+1.18% ). Red side, Alcatel Lucent was down 0.15%, 0.06% of Capgemini and GDF Suez of 0.02%.

The SBF, Scor (1.78% to 21.43 euros) stands out. The reinsurer recorded in 2010 net profit up 13% to 418.0 million euros, above expectations, thanks to a surge in financial products, according to a statement released Tuesday.It is also in talks to buy the U.S. Transamerica Reinsurance, a subsidiary of its Dutch rival Aegon, reports Bloomberg.

Air France-KLM (-0.34% to 11.60 euros) reported on Tuesday morning traffic on a February increase of 4.9% capacity increase of 5.1% annual rate . This brings "a quasi-stable load factor to 77.6%," says the airline in a statement. Passenger numbers rose 5.7% to 58.1 million.

Side values, the oil services group Technip (-1.28% to 70.72 euros) has signed a contract worth around 45 million euros for the Gjoa Field Development in the Norwegian North Sea, he said Tuesday in a statement.

To be continued this evening, after-hours trading, the 2010 earnings of Havas and BioMérieux.

The big French companies have practically recovered their health dazzling pre-crisis! The combined profits of the forty groups of ACC and reached 82.15 billion euros (1), up 83.5% over 2009! "These results are good, although still lower than 15% for those records in 2007," said Pierre Sabatier, in PrimeView. Sales of these major groups have rebounded, approaching their pre-crisis. Golablement, the 40 stars of the Paris stock exchange recorded a turnover of EUR 1.26974 trillion, up nearly 7% over 2009. Companies have restructured and reduced their debts much since the crisis began."They benefited in 2010 of an enabling environment, financing conditions very favorable from a raw material prices relatively low and a recovery in global growth driven by emerging countries," Pierre Sabatier analysis.

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The year 2010 was marked by a return to better fortunes of banks and insurance companies, but auto manufacturers. Other companies have also created surprise. "About half of large listed announced results that exceeded analysts' expectations, however high," says Claudia and Panseri at Societe Generale.If the telecom industry or certain values (Vallourec) were somewhat disappointed analysts, pharmaceutical (Sanofi-Aventis), the consumer goods sector (Danone, Essilor, L'Oréal), luxury and technology companies (Alcatel ) did better than expected. "For some groups, it is merely a technical rebound. But others have found, or exceeded their profits before the crisis. This is the case of the automobile (Renault, Peugeot), steel, construction (Saint-Gobain, Lafarge) or luxury (LVMH, PPR), "said Christian Parisot at Aurel BGC.

Companies will be pampered and invigorated their shareholders by donating about 40 billion euros in dividends. "The crisis of the past, but has left its mark. Businesses remain cautious and even if they have a lot of cash, they invest little for the moment, "said Pierre Sabatier.Especially since the year looks a bit more complicated than 2010. Certainly, the consensus of analysts expects an increase of 11% of the results of the ACC in 2011.

"Sectoral Differences"

But these forecasts are somewhat compromised by the soaring prices of raw materials and oil, which if continued could weigh on consumer spending. "For now, we're not too worried because global growth is buoyant, particularly in the United States. This should allow companies to increase their turnover and profits, "said Claudia Panseri. "But if at the end of the second quarter, oil prices remain too high, companies could face new difficulties," she nuance. For some economists, margins, now at their highest, might suffer. Corporate profits should be less homogeneous."There will be more pronounced sectoral differences. Companies that can raise their prices to cope with rising commodity prices should fare better than others, "suggests Christian Parisot.

(1) These results were calculated using for EADS, Alstom and Pernod Ricard, the earnings estimates of analysts.

The champions of profitability are in the health and luxury

Health, luxury and drink: this is the ranking of the most profitable of the CAC 40. With a net margin of over 17%, the pharmaceutical group Sanofi-Aventis is by far the head of the most profitable companies in the benchmark index of the Paris Bourse. Despite competition from low-cost generic products, the blockbuster drugs that markets the group remains a fantastic source of profit, even if it tends to decrease from year to year.That's why Sanofi-Aventis accelerates acquisitions in the biotechnology sector. Activities located far upstream of the research cycle that will not suffer competition from laboratories specializing in the exploitation of patents has fallen into the public domain. It responds to this concern that the takeover bid of 20.4 billion currently on American society Genzime.

"The other champions of profitability are all protected by strong brands and recognized internationally, said Pierre-Yves Gauthier, strategist of financial analysis firm AphaValue.The strength of the brand is even considered an asset, it is a guarantee of high profitability and sustainability of future earnings. "There is nothing surprising in these conditions to see in the list of the groups with the most comfortable margins of LVMH, the world leader in luxury, L'Oreal, which remains a true superstar on the cosmetics market, but Pernod Ricard, which has to focus on the segment of premium spirits. These are sectors that benefit from the excellent image of France abroad.

Technological advance

"The common point of companies like LVMH, L'Oreal and Pernod Ricard, is that their high level of profitability does not only depend on their ability to protect their margins. It also relies on the strong business growth in emerging countries but also in the U.S., where business goes.That's what investors look primarily, "said Francois Mallet, head of research at Kepler Capital Market Action. In another area, Essilor International shows very strong margins (12% on net income) based on its technological lead in glasses.

Largest provider of benefits of CAC 40 with 10.5 billion euros in profits in 2010, Total is not the group's most profitable CAC 40 in terms of profit margin. It appears, however, among the "oil majors" the better off the Old Continent, far ahead of the British giant Anglo BP or Royal Dutch Shell. With 7.48 billion euros in net profit in 2010, BNP Paribas ranks among the most profitable banks in Europe. The first French bank has cleared the crisis, since the record profits achieved in 2007 is outdated.

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