French president says Peugeot layoffs are unacceptable

[Kralizec]

Workers' Rights, Environmental Protection, Anti-Monopoly measures, and all that good stuff are exactly what I was talking about. But, when you have a company that only exists because the taxpayers (French ones, in this case) have kept it afloat, it makes sense to be outraged when they turn around and fire thousands of taxpayers because the people at the top don't know how to innovate.

I somewhat agree. On a side note, in the Neth's there was some ruckus when banks (ING group, in particular) received bailout money yet continued to pay bonuses to their top management. The fact that some of the people who approved of those bonuses were former Labour politicians didn't help.

However, the financial support that these industries received were due to exceptionally bad circumstances that would have caused otherwise viable companies to collapse. The banks I talked of and Peugot are certainly viable in the long run. If it weren't for the crisis, Peugeot still might have considered to move jobs to cheaper countries because French workers are simply too expensive. It's easy to be indignant about such moves; but it would be better to implement policies and tax regimes that are beneficial and attractive to such companies.

I'm generally sceptical anyway when it comes to France and economic issues vs workers' rights - largely because of Spanish strawberries.