In its Tuesday 11 March edition, the French daily Le Monde published a survey on the performance of French groups in 1999, together with a list of the twenty-five largest French groups, classified according to their turnover. The results show a transformation qualified as unprecedented in relation to the previous year. The survey indicates, notably that: i) four firms achieved turnovers of well over or close to FF 250 bn, whereas no group attained that in 1998. These are THOMSONELF (pro-forma amount), CARREFOUR (pro-forma amount), VIVENDI and PSA; ii) fourteen of them crossed the 100 bn mark, whereas they were only ten in 1998; iii) mergers-takeovers were the main instruments behind this change. This type of operation leapt by 123% in a year, reaching FF 1,870 bn; iv) groups sought rather to increase in size rather than increase their profits. (For the table, please refer to the paper version). It emerges from this classification that: i) the merger between TOTALFINA and ELF shot the group to the top of the classification. This group is now the world's fourth largest in the oil sector; ii) CARREFOUR comes in second place thanks to its takeover of PROMEDES; iii) VIVENDI is now ahead of RENAULT and PEUGEOT thanks to a good performance in the environment and telecommunications sectors, as well as its takeover of the American US FILTER, France's largest takeover operation in the United States.