The French Government Just Did Marissa Mayer A Huge Favor, Blocking Yahoo's $200 Million Deal To Buy The French YouTube

According to several reports, the French government has blocked Yahoo's attempt to buy a controlling stake in Dailymotion, the YouTube of France.

Everyone is mocking the French government for doing this, because the government says it blocked the deal to protect the French economy and its workers, but Yahoo was going to pay Dailymotion's parent company, Orange, $200 million, and Orange says it was going to use the money to invest in its French operations.

Oh well.

That's France for you.

What's interesting to us is that France may have done Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer a huge favor in blocking the deal.

The gossip is that she was never very keen on the deal in the first place.

Word is that it was her COO, Henrique De Castro, who really wanted it.

We heard the two got in a heated debate over the deal in front of other Yahoo executives.

Now that the deal is off the table, Mayer and De Castro can leave their disagreement behind.

Mayer needs De Castro to work as her COO. He's very, very expensive. Not counting some stock grants, he'll make $62 million over the next three and a half years.