French Workers Burn Tires, Hold 3M Manager Hostage

"The risks of repercussions of ill-feeling from employees and from a political backlash are real if execs continue to be compensated at pre-crisis levels," said Cubillas Ding, a senior analyst at financial research firm Celent. "Bonus and pay cuts are now seen as the politically correct thing to do."

Rising public outrage at employers has led to kidnappings, marches and strikes in France, a country with a long tradition of labor unrest.

A French 3M executive was being held hostage for the second day at a plant in Pithiviers, south of Paris, as workers protested layoffs. The situation was calm, however, with labor talks taking place there Wednesday.

Detained 3M manager Luc Rousselet told an AP reporter "Everything's fine" and workers planned to bring him mussels and French fries for dinner.

In Paris, rage boiled over into an angry march on the presidential palace and a bonfire of tires set alight by workers from Germany's Continental AG, whose auto parts factory in Clairoix, northeast of Paris, plans to shut down in 2010.

Similar resentment is emerging in many parts of Europe. Vandals smashed windows early Wednesday at the home of the former CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Sir Fred Godwin resigned in disgrace but waltzed out at age 50 with an annual pension of about 700,000 pounds ($1.2 million).