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France's Royal slams "incredible" Total profits

15 Feb 2007 20:52:55 GMT
Source: Reuters

RESSENNEVILLE, France, Feb 15 (Reuters) - French Socialist Segolene Royal attacked Total on Thursday for refusing to pay for the Erika tanker disaster despite the "incredible" profit of over 12 billion euros ($15.77 billion) it posted a day earlier.

Total <TOTF.PA>, facing charges over the 1999 Erika disaster that fouled French beaches with thousands of tonnes of toxic fuel oil, posted 2006 net profit of 12.59 billion euros ($16.54 billion) on Wednesday, equivalent to $500 a second.

Royal, the Socialist candidate for the presidential election in April and May, has been struggling to relaunch a flagging campaign in which she has trailed the right's champion Nicolas Sarkozy in the opinion polls for weeks.

She singled Total out as the kind of corporate villain she wanted to stop and criticised the group as "a company (which) after the drama of the Erika is still waiting to compensate the districts that were polluted by this ecological disaster".

"This company has just insolently published incredible profits while, in parallel, it is reducing the number of jobs," she said on the campaign trail in northern France.

Her attack on Total follows her criticisms of companies that close factories in France to move to lower-cost locations.

"In the France of tomorrow, this should no longer be possible. Public authorities have to be a lot more powerful to organise a fair division of company profits," she said.

Royal's economic programme, unveiled at the weekend, contains a range of measures to help low earners and young people and also one to impose an "exceptional levy" on oil firms to fund transport initiatives.

Divisions in her camp were underlined on Thursday when one of her economic advisers, Eric Besson, resigned in a row over the costs of the programme estimated at some 35 billion euros.

Total's record profits came in the same week the Erika trial began, adding political pressure to a company already in the firing line over high oil costs and climate change.

Total, the world's fourth largest oil group, is accused of marine pollution, deliberately failing to take measures to prevent the pollution and complicity in endangering human lives after one of France's worst environmental disasters.

It rejects the accusations and says it has already paid 200 million euros on the cleanup operation.

The western coastal area of Poitou Charentes, where Royal is regional president, is a plaintiff in the case against Total.

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Last updated:Thu Feb 15 20:53:42 2007