ROME and PARIS — Italy's Fincantieri will wait out France's present election season to see if an announced review of its takeover of a major French shipyard is campaign rhetoric or a real promise.

France's new president, Emmanuel Macron, said Wednesday he would order a review of Fincantieri's purchase of a major stake in the STX shipyard at Saint-Nazaire, which is the only yard in Europe large enough to build an aircraft carrier.

The aim of the review was to "guarantee the preservation of jobs" and maintain domestic shipbuilding capability, Macron said.

The speech slammed the brakes on ambitions by Fincantieri CEO Giuseppe Bono to make Fincantieri and STX France the foundations of a "naval Airbus" — an integrated European shipbuilding capacity.

But Italian sources said Fincantieri would react cautiously to the speech, bearing in mind that Macron was addressing workers at the yard just days ahead of parliamentary elections on June 11 and 18.

"Fincantieri will wait and see what is said after the elections," an Italian industrial source said.

In April, the French government led by Macron's predecessor, Francois Hollande, agreed to allow Italian state-controlled Fincantieri to take 48 percent in the yard.

The deal was kickstarted when STX's former owner, Korea's STX, went bankrupt and Fincantieri was named as the preferred bidder for its controlling stake. The French government intervened, handing home player DCNS 12 percent while keeping its 33.3 percent stake.

To allow the Italian shareholding to creep over 50 percent, but in order to keep Fincantieri's shareholding below 50 percent, the remaining 6.6 percent in STX France was assigned to an Italian investment body, Fondazione CRTrieste.

Then came Macron's election last month, and reports that the new French administration considered Fondazione CRTrieste too close to Fincantieri.

"I want to see the initial balance agreed in April to be revised," Macron said on Wednesday.

Macron said in his speech he welcomed the arrival of Fincantieri into STX, which would strengthen Europe. But he added he had listened to dock workers, subcontractors and local politicians, and had asked Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire to negotiate over the next few weeks a new ownership plan.

The revised plan, approved by the president's Elysée office, seeks to reduce the Italian stake by removing Fondazione CRTrieste from the acquisition and putting in two ship operators, MSC and Royal Caribbean Cruises, afternoon daily Le Monde reported.

Bringing in MSC and Royal Caribbean — clients of STX — with a combined stake of 10 percent would cut Fincantieri's role to an "industrial operator" with a large minority stake.

Earlier on Wednesday, Fincantieri argued its case for taking over the yard in the French publication Mer et Marine.

In its statement, the firm denied that it would drain work from STX to its Italian yards, saying it already had a backlog of nine years' work in Italy, mainly related to cruise ships. Moreover, it added, ships being built at Saint-Nazaire were too large for its Italian yards.

Fincantieri was set to hand more autonomy to French management at STX that the previous Korean owners had granted, the firm said.

After Macron's speech, Italy's economic development minister, Carlo Calenda, suggested that the Italian government would not accept the relegation of Fincantieri to the role of just one of STX's shareholders.

"We are certain we will find a joint solution, using as a basis the agreement reached a few weeks ago," he said.

Tom Kington is the Italy correspondent for Defense News.

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