PARIS, Nov 2 (Reuters) – Telecom equipment maker
Alcatel-Lucent may sell assets to strengthen its
balance sheet after posting a second straight quarterly loss as
its customers around the world cut spending on mobile and fixed
networks.

Chief Financial Officer Paul Tufano said the group was
considering options such as “reprofiling our debt or an infusion
of liquidity, including asset sales.”

PARIS (Reuters) – Advertising agency Publicis saw its organic growth slow markedly in the third quarter after Europe’s economic woes spread to once-immune northern countries like Germany and Britain in September.

Quarterly sales reached 1.63 billion euros ($2.11 billion), the group said on Friday. Organic growth of 2 percent came in below Publicis’ earlier forecast of 4.1 percent and analyst estimates of 2.9-4.5 percent.

PARIS, Oct 25 (Reuters) – France Telecom has
slashed its dividend for this year and next, it said on
Thursday, as it tackles tougher than expected competition in its
key home market from a new low-cost mobile rival and a weaker
economic outlook.

Predicting a 1 billion-euro ($1.3 billion) slump in
operating cash flow next year, the owner of the Orange mobile
brand said it would pay a dividend of at least 0.80 euros a
share in 2012 and 2013, down from the 1.21-1.35 euros originally
promised for 2012 in February, and the 1.4 euros paid last year.

PARIS (Reuters) – Telecoms equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent (ALUA.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) plans to axe 5,490 jobs worldwide as part of a cost-saving programme unveiled in July, with more than a quarter of the cuts coming in France.

Union representatives on Thursday pledged to fight the 1,430 job cuts in France, which represent more than 15 percent of the company’s 9,000 staff in the country, and called on the government to intervene.

PARIS, Oct 18 (Reuters) – Telecom equipment maker
Alcatel-Lucent plans to axe 5,490 jobs worldwide as
part of a cost-saving plan unveiled in July, with more than a
quarter of the cuts coming in France, a French union said on
Thursday.

The figure includes 1,430 job cuts in France, at the high
end of the range feared by staff representatives, according to
Isabelle Guillemot, of the CFDT union.

PARIS (Reuters) – Google has four months to make its privacy policy comply with requests from European Union data protection watchdogs or start facing the possibility of disciplinary action at a national level.

France’s Commission Nationale de l’Informatique, working on behalf of the EU’s 27 national data regulators, said on Tuesday it had found legal flaws with a new approach to user data that Google adopted in March.

PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) – Vivendi SA (VIV.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is exploring the sale of its stake in Morocco’s largest telecoms company, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters, potentially raising around 4.2 billion euros ($5.5 billion) as part of a debt-cutting restructuring plan.

The sources said the diversified French company had contacted two investment banks to sound out potential buyers for the 53 percent stake in Maroc Telecom (IAM.CS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Vivendi’s second-biggest profit earner.

PARIS (Reuters) – Alcatel-Lucent (ALUA.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) on Thursday laid a fresh bet on mass job cuts and cost savings to survive stiff competition and weak demand hollowing out the global telecom equipment industry.

The move to axe 5,000 jobs and find 1.25 billion euros ($1.5 billion) by exiting unprofitable markets and contracts is the latest downsizing shift designed to set the company on a solid footing since an ill-fated merger in 2006.

PARIS, July 24 (Reuters) – France’s second-biggest private
broadcaster, M6, ruled out a recovery in the
television advertising market this year after it saw a brutal
slowdown of its business in the second quarter.

Revenue at its main M6 channel, smaller digital channels
such as W9, and its e-commerce and content rights businesses all
shrunk in the second quarter despite growing in the first.

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s antitrust regulator approved Vivendi’s acquisition of two television channels from industrialist Vincent Bollore with few major conditions, paving the way for Vivendi to expand into free-to-air broadcasting.

The decision comes after Vivendi’s pay-TV business Canal+ agreed in September to buy 60 percent of Bollore’s Direct 8 and music-focused Direct Star channels for 465 million euros ($565.8 million).