Pointing the way: Nicolas Sarkozy addresses workers at a sawmill in eastern France. The president’s proactive support for companies is attracting interest from overseas ministers such as the UK’s Lord Mandelson

It is not known whether Jean-Baptiste Colbert ever visited Saint Auban. But the spirit of the 17th-century French finance minister, whose name has become synonymous with state intervention, lives on in the battle over a factory that lies half-built on the outskirts of the small Provençal town on the banks of the Durance river.