An unwieldy conglomerate of over 300 businesses, it had been broken by overseas competition and (typically German) high labour costs.
That said, GM has well-known problems: too much debt, too many dealers and brands, high labour costs, and crippling liabilities to pensioners.
More realistically, however, Germany and France are already seen as hostile business environments because of their high labour costs and taxes, and their rigid markets.
Because of inflexibility in the labour market and high labour costs, German companies do much of their labour-intensive production abroad, keeping the capital-intensive operations at home.
His pledge to save industry, by giving Arnaud Montebourg, an anti-globalisation politician, the job of preventing closures, is looking empty as manufacturers line up to close factories and slam high labour costs.
More than 60% of the world's rough diamonds come from Africa, he says, but a lack of expertise and relatively high labour costs means that the stones are usually shipped overseas, to countries such as India, for assessment and cutting.
Up north in the tar sands, many projects are being postponed, as the credit crunch adds to the woes caused by low oil prices and high labour and material costs.
This is chiefly linked to rigid labour-market rules and payroll charges on employers, which between them keep labour costs high and deter job creation.
To turn an honest centavo, businesses must cope with awful roads, high energy costs, archaic labour laws and a Byzantine bureaucracy.
But rather than set up production in a country with labour costs as high as Germany, Siemens could have entered into a joint-venture with an Asian manufacturer.
That is, that unit labour costs were too high and that they needed to come down.
The problem in most continental countries is that labour costs are too high.
Labour costs were getting too high for the productivity of that labour.
Main reasons: labour-market rigidity and high costs, not least due to social-security contributions, which have now risen to 42% of wages and salaries.
Small and medium-sized businesses face high raw-materials prices and rising labour costs, but miss out on the low electricity prices and tax advantages enjoyed by big firms.
Either the economy will recover, and labour costs will rise, or the high level of unemployment will weigh on demand and revenues will suffer.
Although German employers like to complain about the country's high wages and taxes (which together mean that its labour costs are around 12% above the country's main international competitors), many admit privately that it is flexibility, rather than cost reductions, which they need most urgently.
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