Well, the writeoff is why people are getting annoyed. Ultimately, whichever way you swing it, Alitalia got what is considered by many in the industry as illegal state aid. 300 million Euros is a LOT of money, and the deal that AFKLM came up with was a frank assessment of what Alitalia is really worth with all its debts, liabilities, the unions, the aging fleet, everything. They should've taken Alitalia management's advice, which was "please let's merge with AFKLM, get rid of the baggage and try again".
As I pointed out before, AFKLM walked away, yes. They walked away because the unions wouldn't budge. And as groundhand points out, sometimes you have to start fresh, getting rid of as much as possible of the old to make a new start to make it all work again.
The government as a 49% stakeholder could have done earlier what was necessary - negotiate a deal with AFKLM, take the offer on the table, or let the airline go bust BEFORE spending another 300 million of money that could've been used better elsewhere, like the German state government (not federal) did for the Nokia factory in Bochum. People were retrained, found new jobs for, relocated, and given financial assistance. There were very few people left stranded afterwards.
S.