Nicholas sarkozy, France's ambi-tious finance minister, is unceasing in his creativity when it comes to helping the country's business champions-and, by helping them, helping to further boost his popularity. More often than not, his creativity brings him into conflict with the eurocrats in Brussels, a fact that itself may do his career the world of good. He seems to view his controversial rescue of engineering group Alstom and his call for there to be a French buyer of Aventis, a drug firm, as badges of honour. On August 26th Mr Sarkozy added another, when he gave Vivendi, a media company still struggling to recover from over-expansion during the recent bubble, permission to switch to a tax regime that will unlock tax credits worth up to EUD3.8 billion ($4.6 billion) in the next five years. In return, Vivendi has promised to create 2,100 new jobs, most of them in economically struggling areas of the country-a promise that may not mean much in practice.
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