Commentary: En Garde, French Shareholders

Les Anglo-Saxons is a loaded term in Paris these days, somehow suggestive of stop-at-nothing free marketeers looking to pull a fast one over the guileless French. Yet even diehard Gaullists probably recognize that if French capitalism has matured in recent years--and it has--a large measure of credit must go to the British and the Americans. Thanks to privatizations of state companies, share ownership has increased tremendously. French managers are starting to reveal their take-home pay--a big step toward global transparency standards. And the French are debating adopting other features of the U.S. model, from stock options to lower taxes. All this reflects lessons learned across the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean.

But there's one feature of U.S. corporate life the French should block at the dock: the use, or rather abuse, of the poison pills many U.S. corporations concocted to fend off unwelcome takeovers in the 1980s. Some big French companies are making ominous moves to impose restrictions on shareholders' rights. But moving away from the principle of one share, one vote by making some shareholders more powerful than others is not the way to go if France is to take the place it deserves in the global economy.