France's EdF can write off losses to consumers while in Finland the shareholders are the major consumers.

EDF is the most profitable company in France (it has had a bigger operating profit than Total, the oil company, for the past two years, despite the fact that its turnover is less thna half Total's). That reflects the fact that its production costs are the lowest, by far, in Europe.

And not that this is not the reuslt of past subsidies. EDF has been paying money to the French government for the past 25 years, not the other way around. And French electricity prices are the lowest in Europe (escept for a couple of Scandinavian countries that have access to plenty of hydro power).

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes