During the late 1990s, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's Plural Left government initiated a policy of privatisation of several state-owned companies, including Thomson-CSF. During April 1998, several of the affected companies, including Aérospatiale, Alcatel, Dassault Industries, Thomson-CSF and Thomson SA reached a cooperation agreement endorsed by the French government. Several of these terms brought about a major restructuring of Thomson-CSF. Firstly, the professional and defence electronics businesses of Alcatel and "Dassault Électronique" were merged with Thomson-CSF. Secondly, satellite businesses of Alcatel, Aerospatiale and Thomson-CSF are merged to form a new entity, Alcatel Space; this was jointly owned by Alcatel and Thomson-CSF.