> it was the SIF clause that allowed them to block the deal

Not that I know of. The SIF didn't have any ownership of Dailymotion anymore. Their shares had been bought by Orange.

Montebourg just said publicly he wouldn't let Orange sell, and it killed the deal.

Only slightly related: why do French startups need to take State money? Because we have much less private investment, in part due to our social model. We don't have many pension funds because most of the retirement system is state-owned, we have few private universities because the best part of the higher education is state-owned... So basically we have no LPs.