Selling off the family silver: France announces firesale of 1,700 state properties to cut £1trillion debt

Published 10th Jun 2010

The French government has announced plans to sell off 1,700 state properties in a bid to cut the country's heavy debts.

The firesale will include castles and mansions and is the first time the Sarkozy government has laid out such ambitious sell-off plans.

Budget Minister Francois Baroin said France has a disproportionately high amount of state property and has been trying to shed 'useless and unadapted' buildings.

He said reducing some of the country's 1.49 trillion euro (£1.23 trillion) debt is part of the reason for the sales, but insisted less than 20 percent of proceeds will go directly to debt payments.

The rest will go towards new government investments.

State property sales in the past four years have brought in 3 billion euro (£2.5 billion).

Source: ' Daily Mail '

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