Mystery industrialist ready to invest in French ArcelorMittal plant President Francois Hollande told journalists in Paris that talks were taking place with ArcelorMittal and potential buyers, a day after he pressed Chief Executive Lakshmi Mittal to keep the furnaces running. "He is waiting for Mr Mittal to come up with a proposal other than the site's closure, or else the government intends to nationalise it temporarily," said Edouard Martin, a Florange union leader camping in front of France's finance ministry. ArcelorMittal has so far said it wants to sell only the idled furnaces and not the entire site, a steelworks that employs some 600 people in the heart of what was once French steelmaking country near the German border. The company has told France's Socialist government that it plans to shut the furnaces, which it says are no longer economically viable, unless a buyer willing to take them over can be identified by December 1. Steel industry experts say it would be tough to find a buyer for the furnaces alone without the adjacent steel plant. "Discussions are ongoing," a London-based spokesman for ArcelorMittal said when asked if the firm would be ready to sell the Florange steelworks. He would not elaborate. Earlier, Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said the prospect of a temporary nationalisation of Florange was a special case and did not meant that further state takeovers for threatened factories were being prepared.