The snowball looks to be headed down the hill:

GRENOBLE, France — For a second straight day, French workers facing steep layoffs at a Caterpillar factory held four of their bosses at the U.S. manufacturer’s plant in the Alps, union officials said.

The workers also made a direct appeal to French President Nicolas Sarkozy to save their jobs, said Nicolas Benoit, a representative of the CGT union at the Caterpillar plant in Grenoble.

“We expect a strong political response,” Benoit said. “The goal is to save jobs.”

The conflict between workers and management at Caterpillar marks the third time in the past few weeks that French workers have detained their bosses to protest layoffs stemming from the global economic crisis.

Unease and unrest have been spreading across France as more jobs are lost, and the public becomes increasingly frustrated by the government’s failure to stem the effects of plummeting economic growth.

Last week, workers at a 3M plant south of Paris held the company boss for two days. Earlier in March, workers at a Sony plant held a similar protest.

The economic contraction in France is expected to be the worst in more than three decades, and unemployment is expected to reach nearly 10% this year.

Union representatives appealed to Sarkozy to seek the release of European funds aimed to counter the effects of globalization.

“I am going to save the site,” Sarkozy said on Europe-1 radio this morning when asked about the fate of Caterpillar. However, he offered no concrete solutions to the plant’s plight.

The union leaders at Caterpillar say they have no room to maneuver in negotiations and want immediate talks on a plan to save jobs.

The atmosphere at the plant was calm this morning. Workers brought the managers croissants and chocolate pastries for breakfast.

The workers had detained five managers Tuesday, but allowed one of them who has heart problems to leave. The others were held overnight in Caterpillar offices in the plant.

I guess I'm beginning to see why Sarkozy has threatened to walk out of the G20 meetings unless real changes are proposed to reverse the crash.