ONE reason for Italian anger over the decision on July 27th by Emmanuel Macron, France's president, to stop Fincan-tieri, a shipbuilder from Trieste, winning control of a French shipyard at Saint-Na-zaire, was that recent cross-border deals have mostly gone France's way. Italian businesspeople have grown nervous about French firms' "colonisation" by means of acquisitions in luxury goods, media and telecoms, including the €46bn ($55bn) merger between Luxottica, an Italian maker of spectacles, and France's Essi-lor, announced in January (the group's headquarters will be in Paris). The bad taste will linger even if the two governments strike a deal over Saint-Nazaire by the autumn, as they have pledged.
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