Charming company. But then it is not a company at all in the Anglo-Saxon sense. A sort of Gallic Gazprom, it is the instrument of the Chirac clan for mixed purposes, not least to exalt France by building the world's biggest and most remarked passenger jet, in Toulouse.

This folie de grandeur was launched despite the trend to smaller, fuel-efficient jets serving regional airports in criss-cross flights.

Richard Aboulafia, aviation guru at the Teal Group, said the A380 would never have been approved by the board of commercial company responding to the market. "It was a $13 billion bet on a shrinking niche," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/06/26/ccview26.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2006/06/26/ixcoms.html

FRANCE’S attempts to protect itself from globalisation through state intervention were in tatters last night, with Airbus in crisis and Arcelor likely to fall into the hands of Mittal Steel.

However, M de Villepin’s determination to buck the markets is proving futile and damaging — futile because he does not have the power to do so and damaging because it prevents his compatriots from accepting the reality of globalisation.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13130-2243434,00.html