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A few car transporters come and go through the gates at the Peugeot Citroen plant at Poissy on the outskirts of Paris. Last year 6,000 workers made the bodies of more than 1,000 cars a day.

As I stand outside there is not a soul in sight. The car park is filled with unsold cars. As production has been cut in half management and unions have come to a deal. The temporary workers have gone, but those who remain are on full salary and they have only worked four weeks so far this year. Production will start up again on Monday.

It is plants like this one that President Sarkozy is so determined to keep open, even if he's accused of the twin sins of protectionism and flying in the face of the single market. Ahead of Sunday's summit Gordon Brown, EU Commission President Barroso and the Czech prime minister have all exchanged public letters attacking protectionism.

But the French president is in no mood to climb down. Visiting a plant near Lyon he said:
"I was elected to restore the work situation and to make sure we keep production lines in France. Never mind the controversies and those who complain because, using taxpayers' money, I want to keep industrial jobs on French soil. It is my duty.
I will finish by saying this: when we introduced the auto fund, everyone criticised us. Today everyone imitates us. We're told we shouldn't have done it. What are the Germans now doing with Opel? What are the Swedes going to do with Saab? Frankly, my dear compatriots, in times of crisis you need to take the right decisions, and swiftly."

I am joined outside the gates by Jean-Francois Kondratiuk from the union Force Ouvriere, who defends his president. "It's absolutely natural that if the state lends money to manufacturers the production should stay in France."

Protectionism used to mean putting taxes on goods from outside your own country to protect industries at home. Now the arguments are more about aid to industry. Free trade versus protectionism broke the Conservative Party and the argument raged all over the world during the last century. But for a generation protectionist measures have been seen as vestiges of an out-of-date system that must be cleansed. Protectionists seemed as out of touch as flat earthers.

Nearly all economists argue that free trade enriches everybody involved and protectionism leads to tit-for-tat attacks which damage everyone. But the economist Xavier Timbaud from has a very French objection: "What President Sarkozy is doing is about saving his country at the expense of others. And that is not acceptable, because we have signed an agreement in the European Union and we have a principle of universalism which says that we are not the kind of people who try to save themselves at the expense of others."

I'll be reporting on the debate on tonight's PM programme on Radio 4 and News at Ten on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ1.

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