Why Czechs shouldn't be afraid of Sarkozy

The obstinate Frenchman. The little European champ. Turn him off! Headlines like these appeared in Czech dailies last week in articles about President Nicolas Sarkozy. He earned these epithets thanks to his appeal to the car maker PSA Peugeot Citroën to bring back production from the banks of the Elbe to their home country. It wasn't the most fortunate of statements, it smells like protectionism from a long way off. But before judging him or stoking the fire of sarcasm in the Czech media, let us try and look at the context that Sarkozy is coming from.

What would they say in Prague?

Three weeks ago, France saw a nation-wide union strike. The protest was against generous state subsidies for banks in connection with the crisis. The country can expect a repeat of social dissatisfaction this Thursday. The French are bitter taxpayers are subsidising big companies, and at the same time, these companies are laying off the taxpayers. Not to mention that long before the financial crisis, dozens of big French companies, for instance the famous Moulinex, made use of state subsidies only to partly or completely shut down their factories and move production to countries with cheaper labour. That is the case of Peugeot Citroën in the Czech Republic.

Sarkozy is basically the same as other EU politicians. In France they call it „delocalisation“. Czechs luckily don't have this experience. But our workers at the Tatra plant in Kopřivice…