There's a well known professional railway commentator who wrote a couple of years ago about the Alstom (French) merger with GEC (British) [both were major players in the manufacture of locomotives, after a while just Alstom was], and then looked at other such cross-channel takeovers/alliances.
And he wrote "History has showed me that, despite initial enthusiasm, anyone who goes into a commercial alliance with the French always, always, gets shafted in the end".
Some might say the EU is just this syndrome on a grand scale.
Last edited by WHBM; 20th Feb 2007 at 10:18.