French government gives green light for GE-Alstom deal

Reuters
The logo of U.S. conglomerate General Electric is pictured at the company's site in Belfort, April 27, 2014. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

PARIS (Reuters) - The French government gave the green light on Wednesday for General Electric's planned 12.4 billion euro ($15.6 billion) purchase of most of Alstom's power business. Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said in a statement that the government would activate the process that would see it take a stake of up to 20 percent in French engineering group Alstom from shareholder Bouygues once the GE-Alstom deal was fully completed. (Reporting by James Regan; Editing by Andrew Callus)