Abroad

Paris Relaying America

France will supply $300 million worth of equipment for a steel plant in the Soviet Union to fulfill a contract originally negotiated by a United States-Japanese consortium but canceled by Washington after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. A group of French companies, including the giant Creusot-Loire enterprise, has made a deal to supply high-technology material to the Soviet installation at Novo-lipetsk, south of Moscow. However, there will be no transfer of production skills and techniques, which the Soviets are also seeking. This is the second time that French industry has taken over an American contract for political reasons. Last year, CIT Honeywell Bull, the French computer firm, sold a computer to the Soviet news agency TASS. The original computer contract with Sperry Univac was called off by President Carter two years ago to protest the imprisonment of Soviet dissidents. The computer was needed by the news agency to provide coverage for the Moscow Olympics last summer. The French government is said to have had second thoughts about the steel equipment deal, but its final approval was believed to have been influenced by France’s big Communist-led union group, the CGT.

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Paris Relaying America

France will supply $300 million worth of equipment for a steel plant in the Soviet Union to fulfill a contract originally negotiated by a United States-Japanese consortium but canceled by Washington after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. A group of French companies, including the giant Creusot-Loire enterprise, has made a deal to supply high-technology material to the Soviet installation at Novo-lipetsk, south of Moscow. However, there will be no transfer of production skills and techniques, which the Soviets are also seeking. This is the second time that French industry has taken over an American contract for political reasons. Last year, CIT Honeywell Bull, the French computer firm, sold a computer to the Soviet news agency TASS. The original computer contract with Sperry Univac was called off by President Carter two years ago to protest the imprisonment of Soviet dissidents. The computer was needed by the news agency to provide coverage for the Moscow Olympics last summer. The French government is said to have had second thoughts about the steel equipment deal, but its final approval was believed to have been influenced by France’s big Communist-led union group, the CGT.