Mustier told senators in a parliamentary hearing the group has safeguard mechanisms in place to ensure the government's control of strategic assets like super-calculators and cybersecurity services used by the military and nuclear plants.

But to reinforce the state's position after its current financial restructuring, the government could decide to acquire a minority stake in cybersecurity unit BDS "just as it did with other companies", Mustier said, citing defense groups Thales and Airbus.

(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel, Editing by Dominique Vidalon)