Saying no to Yahoo's bid to take a majority stake in French online video website Dailymotion does not mean the French government is anti-business, the country's foreign minister Laurent Fabius told CNBC on Monday.
Tech giant Yahoo last week ended talks to take a 75 percent stake in Dailymotion, owned by telecoms firms France-Telecom Orange, in a deal that would have valued the website at $300 million, according to media reports.
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"With the Dailymotion case it was something different. The question was not about saying yes or no but about the proportion of the stake [Yahoo would take]," Fabius told CNBC Asia's "The Call."
"My understanding is that they [Yahoo] wanted to buy 75 percent, which means they would have taken control of it. And we were in favor of 50-50, which is why the deal didn't go through," Fabius said, adding: "But we are fourth in the world for foreign investment and we remain very open to foreign investment."
Fabius said that France, the euro zone's second biggest economy, remained business friendly despite negative headlines over the past year about high taxes that have damaged France's reputation as a destination for business.
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