France’s new socialist government has moved to clamp down on excessive corporate pay by promising to cut the wages of chief executives at companies in which it owns a controlling stake, including EDF, the nuclear power group.
In a departure from the more boardroom-friendly approach of the previous rightwing administration, François Hollande, the president, wants to cap the salary of a company leader at 20 times that of their lowest-paid worker.
According to Jean-Marc Ayrault, the prime minister, the measure would be imposed on chief executives at state-controlled groups such as Henri Proglio at EDF and Luc Oursel at Areva, the nuclear engineering group. Their pay would fall by about 70 per cent and 50 per cent respectively should the plan be cleared by lawyers and implemented in full.