Claims of state involvement in alleged insider trading at the French defence firm EADS must be fully investigated, President Nicolas Sarkozy has said.
Mr Sarkozy said anyone found guilty of fraud in the sale of shares in the Airbus owner must be properly punished.
Media reports have claimed regulators were aware of problems at EADS, but still approved suspicious share sales.
They are looking at share sales before news about damaging delays to the Airbus A380 emerged in June 2006.
This news wiped billions of euros off the market value of EADS, the Franco-German firm which owns the Airbus plane manufacturer.
Prosecutors have been investigating allegations of insider dealing in the eight months leading up to this critical announcement.
| | I want to know the truth about what happened concerning the state Nicolas Sarkozy |
Newspaper reports have claimed 21 former and current managers are under suspicion but stock market regulators have refused to comment on this, saying their probe is incomplete.
The role of the French government - which holds a 7.5% stake in EADS - is under scrutiny amid allegations that ministers allowed state bank CDC to buy shares from defence firm Lagardere in April 2006 despite knowing about problems at the planemaker.
Thierry Breton, finance minister at the time, said last week that he did not know about the deal and that the state's role was "beyond reproach".
Opposition calls
But Mr Sarkozy said the finance ministry's internal investigation into its conduct, announced on Friday, must get "to the bottom" of what happened.
"I want to know the truth about what happened concerning the state," he told reporters.
"If there are people who committed fraud at EADS, judicial officials must get to the bottom of it so that we know the truth and those who behaved dishonestly be punished in proportion to what they did."
Opposition politicians have called for a public inquiry into the role of the administration of former President Jacques Chirac during the period now the subject of a judicial investigation.
A Socialist Party spokesman called for the "fullest transparency and a timetable of the information that was provided to various ministers between November 2005 and April 2006".
Airbus is set to hand over its first completed A380 plane to Singapore Airlines on 15 October after a series of delays costing billions of euros.
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