Vivendi’s share price has this morning rose by 3.22 per cent following the news of its merger with Activision – and the surprise move seems to have set tongues wagging in the city, Reuters reports.

Alongside Vivendi’s rise, fellow French publishers Ubisoft and Atari-owning Infogames also saw stock gains of 6.8 per cent and 7.7 per cent respectively, with French newspaper Les Echos speculating that EA will respond to its usurping as the world’s largest third party publisher by raising its current 15 per cent stake in Ubisoft.