France bit the bullet yesterday, and announced plans to privatise Credit Lyonnais after spending tens of billions of dollars to salvage what was once one of the world's biggest banks from self-destruction.

Finance Minister Mr Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the government would start by seeking partner shareholders early next year and follow up with a stock market float by June which would reduce the state's stake in the bank to 10 per cent: "This will be an important element in restructuring France's banking landscape."

The sale will bring 50 years under state ownership to an end and definitively sever a lifeline which saved Lyonnais from ruin after a breakneck expansion that went badly awry and plunged the bank into massive losses in the early 1990s.