Well, is a little more complicated than this. The group PSA (owner of peugeot and citroen) is not exclusively French anymore. After the low sales in the austericide years was rescued by Chinese investors (Dongfeng motor corporation). The Peugeot family has lost the full control of their companies by first time in 200 years.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-19/china-s-do...
Renault on the other hand allied with Nissan.
And if someone wonder why EU didn't just try to do something to help those european companies that employ thousands of european people... Because Germany motor companies pushed hard against.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-10-23/lower-saxo...
I wonder why France didn't just try to do something to help Peugeot.
Re:UK votes to leave EU
by sievebrain on Friday June 24, 2016 @06:15AM
(#11968437)
The current French leadership is extremely unpopular and extremely pro EU.
They may well want to impose big tariffs. The question is to what extent the French themselves want that.
You are saying that France can easily impose import tariffs against the UK with no repercussions because the UK wants wine but doesn't need cider in return. This is the worst game of Civ ever played.
France has 3 big car manufacturers, Citroen, Renault and Peugeot. They sell lots of these small cars in the UK. Many Britons holiday in France (and own property there). The French economy doesn't want to take a hit on manufacturing, exports and property prices as well as tourist francs (remember those?).
Imposing tariffs on the UK would be a disaster for the French economy. It isn't going to happen. European manufacturing tariffs would be akin to routing a percentage of all trade out of Europe and into Asia.