Update: French Budget Crisis Risk, Trump Meets Zuckerberg & 130k Jobs At Risk

Your morning briefing, the business news you need in just 15 minutes.

On today's podcast:

(1) French Finance Minister Antoine Armand said he is prepared to make concessions on the 2025 budget bill to avoid opposition parties toppling the government in the coming weeks. The prospect has pushed investors to sell French assets, driving up the country's borrowing costs compared with European peers. The rate on 10-year French notes matched Greece's for the first time on record on Thursday.

(2) UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves' £26 billion tax hike on businesses may cost as many as 130,000 jobs if bosses choose to pass on the burden by reducing employment, according to analysis by Bloomberg Economics.

(3)  The Biden administration is weighing additional curbs on sales of semiconductor equipment and AI memory chips to China that would escalate the US crackdown on Beijing's tech ambitions but stop short of some stricter measures previously considered, according to people familiar with the matter.

(4) Donald Trump had dinner with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the president-elect's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Wednesday.

(5) Black graduates face racial discrimination when applying for jobs in financial, professional and legal sectors in the UK, new research shows, even as companies say they are committed to tackling under-representation of minorities at work.

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