Crisis, what crisis?

I am a bit perplexed today. Last night, I watched a scary documentary about a small company in France which makes parts for the major car manufacturers. It was scary because it showed the mountain of stock the company had, and the lack of orders coming in. This situation had forced the company to stop production for three weeks, during the first three months of the year. The employees were obviously worried about their salaries and their jobs. What perplexed me is that, during the protest marches they organised, I heard them shouting Sarkozy's name. Of course, it is natural to try and blame someone, but Sarkozy? Surely it is the names of the heads of the major car manufacturers or the banks who should be solicited.
In France, when a company has problems, and needs to slow down production, they are obliged to use up holidays and RTT days (the famous days used to recuperate for weeks over 35 hours) first. So in the immediate, employees salaries are not touched. Once these days have been used up, the employees enter what is called 'chomage technique'. This means they only receive a proportion of their salary, worrying of course. However, they are entitled to money from social security. Finaly, if they are made redundant, France has a range of measures to help the unemployed back to work, as well as paying them benefits. Sarkozy has not touched any of these. His, and his government's (he doesn't act alone) objectif is to create jobs in response to this crisis.
Surely this is common sense. There is something else that bothers me. It seems to me that the car industry has been in its death throws for some time. We are encouraged to buy new cars by the marketing men, and the car is a symbol of our wealth. However the price of fuel, and environmental concerns, announce the end of our car culture. The industry has been slow to adapt, for example producing electric cars. At the same time, industrial production is cheaper overseas, so we should have seen delocalisation coming. Especially since we all want to pay less for more.
Now, I'm no expert of production methods, but producing parts for theoretical orders, as the company in the programme did, seems rather dangerous to me. Perhaps I am missing something.
Unfortunately, this crisis represents a shake up of our economy and it is not for nothing that the old industries have been hardest hit. While the workers have my sympathy, I think that they should be preparing to retrain and take advantage of the opportunities the government in France offers them.
There is, however, another aspect to my confusion. On saturday, I went skiing with my family. The ski station was packed. It was a nice day and a large number of families were picnicing on the piste. I don't wish to deny people their pleasure, but if times are as hard as people say perhaps skiing, an expensive past time, is not the best way to save money. A recent trip to a local shopping centre led to a similar conclusion. People say they don't have money, but the spending hasn't slowed down.
I think there is a major economic change taking place, it won't be easy but the negative, critical attitude that pervades our society won't make things any easier. We are nowhere near as poor or vulnerable as our grand parents were in the 30's and we should be thankful for that. We need to stay positive and optimistic, this way the crisis and doomsayers won't bring us all down.