Sarkozy seen defending SocGen from predators

PARIS (Reuters) - President Nicolas Sarkozy would probably intervene if a predator tried to take advantage of problems at Societe Generale, one of the French leader's closest advisors said on Sunday.

Advisor Henri Guaino said the state did not always move to defend its companies from takeover bids, but thought the situation at SocGen, which is reeling from a massive fraud scandal, might force an intervention.

"In this case I don't think the state would remain with its arms crossed if someone, whoever the predator, tried to take advantage of the situation," Guaino told a television chat show when asked if Sarkozy would defend SocGen from foreign rivals.

"This does not mean that the decision for the state to intervene will be systematically taken. We are going to see how the situation develops in the days and weeks ahead," he told LCI television station.

When Sarkozy was finance minister in 2004 he hit the headlines by taking on the European Commission and pumping cash into engineering firm Alstom to save it from collapse.

Since then, he has regularly raised the episode as proof that he is ready to defend French national champions in time of trouble and Guaino also mentioned the rescue operation on Sunday while referring to SocGen.

Some analysts have questioned whether France's second-largest listed bank can remain independent following the fraud debacle, that virtually wiped out the bank's 2007 profit.

And Guaino appeared to defend the bank's management from charges of incompetence for failing to spot the illicit trades, which totalled some 50 billion euros when they were uncovered 10 days ago and which cost 4.9 billion euros to unravel.

"I think that today the (banking) system is such that no bank chief in the world knows exactly what is going on in his bank," he said.