The recently announced plan to relocate production of the majority of Airbus's smaller line of jets from Toulouse to Hamburg is causing an uproar in France, where a major French union says it will hold a day of protest against the restructuring plan on Tuesday.

"We are willing to block the production of planes," said Julien Talavan, representative for Airbus at the French union Force Ouvrière (FO). The new German-French division of labor is unacceptable, Talavan told the Parisian business paper La Tribune.

Under the new plan, the entire production and development of small Airbus planes would be relocated in the long term to Germany. "The division of responsibilities was relatively balanced until now," Talavan said.

Airbus's "Power8" restructuring program calls for 3,700 jobs to be cut in Germany and 4,300 jobs to be trimmed in France -- 1,100 of which are to be eliminated at Airbus headquarters in Toulouse. A further 1,600 jobs are to be cut in Great Britain with 400 being eliminated in Spain. The cuts come as a result of losses of billions of euros caused by delays on production of the A380 super jumbo jet that have led to decreased revenues and cancellations of jet orders.

Sarkozy and Royal enter fray

With unrest growing, France's leading presidential candidates are now entering the fray. Interior Minister and conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, who met with labor unions and employees on Monday, said he was considering possible rescue plans. "Airbus is a European success, it's a very technologically advanced company and we can't let it down," he said. " We saved Alstom  when I took care of it, why not Airbus?"

Any state-led plan of action to save the operation would come under scrutiny by the European Union and could aggravate the United States, which has already registered a complaint at the World Trade Organization over state aid to Airbus.

Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal is expected to raise the Airbus issue at her meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Tuesday. If elected, Royal claims she would suspend the restructuring plan and increase government investment in the company, widely praised as a European champion until the current crisis. The French government owns a 15 percent stake in Airbus's parent company, European aerospace and defense giant EADS. "The state must emerge from its lethargy and inertia and stop thinking that the market can solve everything," Royal said.

Such assurances mean little to union member Talavan. "The French plants are losing capacities to Germany -- electricity generation and responsibility for the hull, which account for three-quarters of the employment in production," he says.

Talavan is demanding that Airbus retain its plants at Méaulte and Saint Nazaire, which are slated for sale. In addition, he is pushing for the government to exert "pressure on the European Central Bank to restore balance in the exchange rate between the euro and the dollar." Airbus suffers from the weak dollar, which increases the price of exports.

The FO member suggests that the energy being put into the Power8 reorganization plan should be re-channelled into "solving production problems with the A380." French unions have called for mass protests against the restructuring plan on Tuesday. Taking part will be Airbus workers as well as employees of suppliers whose jobs, according to the FO, are even more endangered than those at Airbus.