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The volatility of exchange rates, capital flows or commodity prices is not necessarily bad but may become so if it reflects investors' doubts about political choices, said Saturday Christian Noyer, the governor of Bank of France.

Changes in exchange rates between major currencies, that capital flows to emerging markets and the impact on currencies and rates of policies pursued by the major economies of concern to investors for several months and will be at heart of debates G20, chaired by France in 2011.

Speaking at a conference on international monetary system in Paris, Christian Noyer declined to directly addressing the current market volatility of sovereign debt.

He simply said, about the hypothesis of a failure of a State on its debt, that "financial markets are paying a higher default rate of interest."

"In fact, failure costs much more than the failure to fail," he said.

For Christian Noyer, the definition of new rules and new devices to prevent "external shocks" will be a priority for the G20 in 2011.

"Volatility is not necessarily a bad thing," he said."To some extent, it is a sign of a well-functioning financial markets."

He said the volatility "becomes a problem when it results from a policy and financial markets contribute to aggravating the shock rather than mitigation."

"We could find ourselves in this situation now because there are doubts about the consistency of these strategies pursued by the major economies," said Christian Noyer.

"It has been observed in recent weeks, some countries tended to publicly challenge the policies of currency or exchange each other.I doubt that will achieve a good result, "he added.

He also stressed the importance for the G20 to develop tools to mitigate the impact of reserve accumulation by some countries.

In the Tribune on Wednesday, Christian Noyer, who sits on the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB), voted in favor of creating new sources of liquidity to alleviate the pressure associated with the accumulation of reserves.

PPR announced Thursday it entered into exclusive negotiations with South Africa's Steinhoff to give up her furniture chain Conforama.

The French group said in a statement it had received a firm offer from Steinhoff, for a price of 1.2 billion euro, plus an unspecified amount of debt owed by Conforama PPR.

PPR, which intends to focus on luxury brands and "lifestyle", wishes to transfer all of its retail chains, which count as Fnac and the pole distance selling Redcats.

The transaction will be subject to the works of Conforama well as competition authorities.

PPR said that shareholders representing together more than 50% of share capital and voting rights have already Steinhoff "irrevocably committed" to vote in favor of the transaction.

It should be conducted around the month of March 2011, said Chief Financial Officer of PPR, Jean-François Palus, during a conference call.

The temporary employment in France continued to grow at a sustained rate in October but still below its level before the crisis, show statistics released Wednesday by job center.

In late October, 656,100 people were employed in temporary, an increase of 3.1% over one month and 23.8% year on year.

Compared to the low point in March 2009 (473.581 jobs), at the height of the economic crisis, the recovery reached 38.5%.

But "we are not yet at the high point of early 2008, when it had reached 732,000," said Bernard Ernst, director of statistics, surveys and forecasts of job center, at a conference press.

The industry alone had 45.3% of late October interim, a preponderant weight which increased in October, as the sector shows the largest increase (+5.8%).

Temporary employment has increased 3.6% over one month in the service sector, while it fell 0.3% in construction.

Labor positions represent nearly 80% of all positions in Acting. It is this category that recorded the strongest growth over one year (+26.4%).

Unsurprisingly, the agency is still young population, with almost half of them are under 30 years. The share of this age, however, declined slightly over the last 12 months.

EDF announced Monday the sale of its 45% stake in Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg (EnBW), the fourth largest German utilities, the Land of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

The transaction price stood at 41.5 euros per share, for a total of 4.7 billion euros.The French public sign electrician with this operation leaving the German market.

"Prospects for development of EDF in Germany through this little carrier participation lay ahead," he said during a conference call Proglio, CEO of the French group.

"The regulatory and legislative negative will result in additional charges for EnBW of around 500 million euros (per year) over the period 2011-2016," he said, estimating that the conditions for extension of the lifetime of nuclear power plants in Germany were a "nuclear tax".

The CEO of EDF also said that the German market was in a situation of overcapacity, which should keep negative pressure on electricity prices in the medium term.

Thomas Piquemal, CFO of EDF, for his part said that sales improved "Profile of organic growth prospects since the EDF EnBW were negative over the next three years."

"Are we finally turned back to Germany, the answer is no.Do we have any ideas? The answer is yes, "but said Henri Proglio, without providing further details.

The agreement of sale of the EDF in the German group will result in the cancellation of a put option to French for 25% of EnBW shares held by OEW and the disappearance of the off balance sheet of 2 , 3 billion euros for this option in the accounts of French, detailed EDF.

ADDED VALUE OF 500 MILLION EUROS

It will allow EDF to record a pretax gain of about 500 million euros.The group says its completion expected in early 2011.

The amount of the transaction and the cancellation of this option allow the French group to reduce its debt of some seven billion euros.

EDF said that this new asset sale gave him leeway to make additional investments.

"The strengthened financial flexibility of the EDF Group will give new opportunities for development in Europe and internationally," the group said.

Proglio declined to detail those "new perspectives", simply recalling the EDF projects in Great Britain, Italy and Central Europe in particular.

"It was obviously a lot of projects in mind which he would not be very realistic to report until today they are operationalized (…).It will be essential for organic growth, which does not by excluding external growth projects, "he said.

Nearly 44% of sales will be made of EDF International of Germany after its release.

Asked whether EDF was considering other divestitures comparable to that of its stake in EnBW, Proglio said: "We're not under stress, this is an opportunity brought about by a political decision (the Land of Baden-Württemberg ) that we turn into industrial and financial opportunity."

Asked about the possibility to change the ownership of the Italian Edison, EDF with A2A control through a shareholders complex due to expire in 2011, Henri Proglio said: "It does not relationship to the German situation that we experienced (…), I do not see why we would withdraw from Italy. "

EDF had already surrendered in October its electricity distribution networks in the UK group Cheung Kong, an operation that induced the French a debt of about $ 6.7 billion.

The group's net debt has reached 44.1 billion euros at June 30 Piquemal Thomas stressed that the ratio of net debt to EBITDA of EDF, expected around 2.5 to the end of 2010, would be improved by 0.3 points over a full year with the release and normative EnBW.

Nicolas Sarkozy began Saturday a working visit of four days in India and immediately turned to support the second Asian giant for the ambitious goals of the French presidency of the G20.

The French president also suggested that a clear agreement on the supply of nuclear reactors would be signed during his stay, citing a "realization" of the bilateral partnership signed in September 2008.

"Areva is a key partner of the Indian nuclear energy," he said in a speech at the satellite center of the Indian space agency (ISRO).

Accompanied by seven ministers and fifty business leaders, Nicolas Sarkozy began his visit in Bangalore, the technological capital of the country.

This first step was the occasion to announce the launch of new joint research programs in French CNES and ISRO, the Indian counterpart, who are already building two satellites jointly study climate and oceans.

But the French were expecting this visit especially the progress in negotiations on the supply to India of two EPR nuclear reactors, a project amounting to about seven billion euros.

In an interview published Saturday by the Times of India, Nicolas Sarkozy indicated that discussions to this end between the French nuclear group Areva and the Indian public NPCIL "continue and that everything is implemented" for signature during his stay.

The issue focuses on two framework agreements, one relating to the preparations for the construction of reactors and the other on the provision of both reactors and their fuel by Areva, which should be signed Monday in New Delhi.

THE RUPEE, A GREAT FUTURE CURRENCY

They would mark a first realization of the Memorandum of Understanding concluded in early 2009 in the wake of the 2008 agreement which set the context – that the French president seemed to take for granted in his speech – the supply of a number up six EPR to India.

A trade agreement is not expected at this stage and could face a new Indian law that involves the responsibility of equipment suppliers in the event of a nuclear accident.

President Barack Obama was already worried about the text during a visit in early November in India and Nicolas Sarkozy said he would raise the issue in his talks planned Monday with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Although his political discussions are not expected before Monday, Nicolas Sarkozy addressed his first action of the G20 and the issues it wishes to see India to support the priorities he intends to defend his presidency at this forum: reform international monetary system, the fight against the extreme volatility of commodity prices and the reform of global governance.

On the latter point, it did not fail to recall that France was long in favor of granting India the status of permanent member of UN Security.

On the second, he asked the "support of Indian farmers to make the world understand that the price of agricultural raw materials or other can not be managed only by speculation about changes and erratic."

As for the monetary reform, an issue that finds little echo at this stage in India, it has not failed to note that the rupee "will one day in the concert of major world currencies.

"Help us in this year 2011 to change this state of things.We need your help to regulate the international monetary order, "he said.

After Bangalore, the French president was headed to Agra, in central India for a private tour of the famous Taj Mahal and the Mughal imperial city of Fatehpur Sikri, with his wife Carla.

It was expected in New Delhi on Sunday late afternoon for dinner with Prime Minister of India.

Defendants during the debt crisis, rating agencies operating in the EU should pass under the supervision of a pan with powers of investigation and sanctions.

Europeans have reached an agreement in principle to get the rating agencies operating in the EU under the supervision of a pan with investigative powers and sanctions, parliamentary sources said, and diplomatic.

The agreement was reached Wednesday night during a meeting in trialogue between representatives of the European Parliament, EU governments and the European Commission, confirmed the parliamentary rapporteur, French conservative Jean-Paul Gauzes .

It must still be ratified by a vote in plenary, scheduled during the parliamentary session in Strasbourg in December, and the finance ministers of the EU.

The idea is to put the rating agencies operating in Europe under the thumb of ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority), one of the pan-European authorities should begin operations in early 2011 under the supervision of the new architecture EU financial.

The first European legislation already requires CRAs, starting next week, to be licensed to practice in the EU, conditional on certain rules of conduct and issued initially by national regulators.

With the new text is ESMA who will handle this task. It will also monitor agencies and, where appropriate, impose fines.

The European Commission should also propose in the middle of next year to further tighten the requirements to be met by agencies, particularly when evaluating sovereign debt.

The ratings assigned by major rating agencies Standard and Poor's, Moody's and Fitch are crucial because they determine the interest rates at which a state or a company can borrow money from the market.

They have been questioned, particularly during the debt crisis, where the sharp deterioration in spring scores of countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain has increased the panic among investors and endangered the stability of the whole euro area.

Europe wants to after 2013 to the private creditors of the eurozone countries to make sacrifices in accordance with the "doctrine" of the IMF. The problem is that it does not exist.

Europe is considering asking after 2013 private creditors to countries in the euro area to make sacrifices in accordance "with the IMF policy" and his "doctrine", but they are fuzzy, knowing that the IMF makes the case basis.

The IMF has long experience of seemingly hopeless cases of States which are no longer able to borrow at reasonable interest rates or to meet their deadlines. Sometimes the solution is to require creditors to lower their claims. But there is no principle engraved in stone. Those creditors who are forced by hand are now only national, sometimes local and foreign. Only sometimes private, sometimes both private and public.

The EU intends to build on this experience. If a country were to suffer a serious solvency crisis after 2013, he could negotiate with bondholders to reduce the debt burden. But the details are more vague than the term to maturity.

The communique finance ministers of the eurozone plan Sunday talks "wholly consistent with the policy of the IMF," based "on a rigorous analysis of debt sustainability led by the European Commission and the IMF". "We apply the doctrine in Europe that exists thanks to the experience of the IMF at the global level so as to have exactly the same type of assessments of debt sustainability, the same private sector involvement," said then President European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet.

Tuesday, he was again welcomed the "clarification" that represented to him the reference to the IMF. It remains difficult to distinguish a "doctrine" of the Fund. The attempt, between 2001 and 2003, under international law to formalize a "mechanism for restructuring sovereign debt" has never succeeded.

These last two years, despite the proliferation of countries came to ask his help, the Fund has negotiated a debt restructuring in two cases: Jamaica and Antigua and Barbuda.

Questioned by AFP, how he interpreted his role in the euro area, the Fund has only said he welcomed the release of the Eurogroup, and declined to give details.

Only seems clear the use of "analysis of debt sustainability," the name given to a document prepared for its member states to fragile public finances, some are seeking debt relief.This paper assesses the risk for a country to fall into debt through projections. The latest "analysis" have dated concerned Honduras, Kyrgyzstan, Yemen, Burundi, Haiti … Many economies that have little in common with Greece or Ireland.

Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economy and Policy Research, the IMF does not know yet what will be asked, resulted in this plan by the core countries of the euro zone, Germany and France led by the European Commission and the ECB.

"In every case where Europeans and the IMF loan to a European country, it is the European authorities who have been the dominant force. The IMF seems to me the subject," he told AFP. "Even within the IMF, there are strong differences on the issue among member states, among economists. This debate is just beginning", he said.