The whole business of foreign ownership comes up every now and then. Part of the reason for the break up of the alliance, pardon the pun, between American Motors Corp. and Renault was that the US government wasn't happy about giving defence contracts to a company (AM General) that had business links to a foreign state owned company (Renault). I thought that was interesting when there was discussion this year about a Chinese company taking a stake in a US oil company.
There may have been a lingering behind-the-scene at the time since France had officially announced that it was refusing to pay back its past debt, even though one thing should have had little to do with the other.