How I agree with you. The UK really sold its manufacturing base down the river, and large portions of the industrial working class with it.

But I don't think Jérôme is against defending national industries (though he'll speak for himself). Let's say there's a certain French, central-statist way of doing it that might seem (anyway, seems to me), pretty much out-of-date and out-of-touch with the country and the people as a whole.