Search for scapegoat starts after Airbus job cuts

PARIS, Mar 1 (Reuters) Mass job losses and a cash drain at plane maker Airbus, battling to stay in the race with Boeing Co, put the spotlight on the power structure at the firm once hailed as an example of European unity.

Airbus on Wednesday said it planned 10,000 job cuts out of its 55,000 staff in France, Germany, Spain and Britain and would sell all or parts of six of its 16 sites in the four countries.

''Airbus is paying a heavy price for bad governance, a control by governments there where one should have had trust in the company,'' European Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot told Europe 1 radio on Thursday, adding countries should abandon their national interests and focus on the future of Europe.

He echoed comments by leading French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy who said on Wednesday that the problem at Airbus and its EADS parent company was a ''problem of leadership''.

The secretary-general of the European metalworkers' federation, Peter Scherrer, blamed politicians for not having fought harder to keep jobs.

''If politicians had done that, than there would not have been such a massive loss of jobs,'' he told German radio. ''Strikes are possibly a means to avoid bad decisions,'' he added.

EMPLOYEES' FUTURE French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said job losses were difficult for the people involved but the future of those employees remaining was also at stake.

''Today it is urgent that the firm is allowed to face up to the situation. That means a certain number of human dramas and it must not be underestimated. The elimination of jobs, even if it is not done by firing people ... is all the same very disturbing for those involved,'' she told France Info radio.

''That said, it is also necessary sometimes to do these things to allow the 80 percent of people who will stay in Airbus to have prospects, the prospects of development,'' she added.

The secretary-general of the French Socialist Party, Francois Hollande, blamed the conservative governments for having ignored the brewing problem.

''I accuse the governments in place since 2002 for not having fully played their role of vigilance, control and (management) appointments,'' he said told LCI television.

Hollande said President Jacques Chirac and his ministers had pushed for the appointment of Noel Forgeard as co-head at EADS and that Forgeard had failed in his mission.

Forgeard resigned in July 2006, following allegations of insider dealing, after he was co-chief executive at EADS for one year and headed Airbus in Toulouse, France, for many years.

Forgeard backed the prestigious A380 superjumbo plane whose delivery delays have exposed Airbus' operating complexities while a drop in the value of the dollar versus the euro highlighted the European group's heavy cost structure.

The Le Figaro paper said on Thursday, citing what it called ''a very good source'', that EADS was considering a capital increase and governance changes to fill the cash hole.

Reuters CS DS1510