Drug company merger - French job security

Very interesting essay in Derek Lowe's Pipeline regarding the merger of two European Pharmaceutical companies and the job layoffs that result from any merger: bq. I wanted to mention another thing about Sanofi-Synthelabo's bid for Aventis. I hope that the French government keeps in mind, as they promote this deal, that one of the main consequences of such mergers is loss of jobs. Guys, that's the point. Associate directors of regional marketing, VPs for regulatory affairs - these people have to be thrown over the side, or the numbers just don't make sense. bq. In the nastier mergers, that crowd on the aft deck gets even thicker, and features R&D staff from the newly redundant therapeutic areas. Ideally, you'd want to hang on to those people (after all, this big new company is going to be doing more research, right?), but sometimes they get tossed. And that's not even taking into account many of the good ones who leave during the chaos for better (and, one hopes, more stable) new jobs - for now, I'll concentrate on involuntary departures. bq. Here's the question: where is this new French company going to cut jobs? Surely not in France! The unions there are famously fierce, for one thing, and it's hard to see how Chirac's government could be pushing so hard for something that will lead to thousands of its constituents being fired. France's unemployment is high enough already, thanks. So where? He then gives a couple of options and makes an interesting observation which doesn't bode well for either company... Heh...