I guess a lot of people will have seen this article,
in which The Mail claims Sarkozy took an impatient and sneery swipe at Britain, in saying the UK has no industry.
While I must confess that I'm not sure whether Britain has less industry than France or not (it might depend how one defines industry, including whether one includes agriculture), I was very unimpressed with the article. The reason for this is that the DM clearly don't have any French speakers, or they would have been able to clearly see that, Sarko wasn't (this time) doing anything of the sort, he was only pointing out how his 1.5% rise in TVA wouldn't hurt purchasing power.
His argument was that the extra TVA, as it wouldn't go on food, would go on consumer goods, many of which are imported. So not only would buying French protect the consumer (guess he had to get that one in), but in areas, such as computers, where there are no french products, there is nonetheless competition in the market that should have a downward pressure on the prices which would counteract the TVA rise. A journalist said "well TVA rises in Germany and the UK DID hurt peoples' spending power" - Sarkozy replied that as the UK doesn't have any industry, the UK people didn't have the same options (a bit irrelevant considering his main point was about competition in consumer goods which, he said, are all imported).
Now whether Sarko was right or wrong about the UK's proportion of industry, my point is that he wasn't, this time, sneering at all - he was just saying that his economic argument wouldn't apply in the UK - a device many politicians use in interviews (your argument doesn't work because your context is different). The Daily Mail jumped on the phrase and took it out of context. I'm sure Sarko probably doesn't like the Brits much (ref his comments on our being an island and therefore not understanding Europe - a low-brow piece of prejudice worthy of print in the same type of publication!). However, I think The Mail are stirring up unnecessary tension. It would be better to focus on real questions like whether or not the Euro will fail and/or whether that would help or hinder the UK...
Serves me right, I guess, for taking a glance at the DM, it's often full of rubbish like that...