Protectionism is usually an inferior policy option that makes everyone poorer. It amounts to a state subsidy of uncompetitive industries, redirecting resources away from other, more productive parts of the domestic economy.
Investing in local industry is perfectly wise. A country that has a skilled workforce, good infrastructure and efficient capital flows is likely to be highly competitive on an international level. Propping up industries just because it's politically easy is the first step down a very slippery slope.
Alstom is comfortably profitable and doesn't need propping up. What's more, it is substantially reliant on export contracts that could be severely jeopardised in a culture of protectionism. The multi-billion dollar contracts it has to provide trains to India, South Africa and the US are all under threat if those countries decide "why should we give all this money to a French company when we could build these trains ourselves?".
Protectionism destroyed the British national morale in the 1970s. The country was weighed down with an unsustainable burden of uncompetitive industries, propped up by the public purse because it was too politically painful to allow them to decline. The resulting swing to Thatcherism resulted in a swift and brutal end to those industries - rather than a managed decline, they were simply culled off, with utterly traumatic effects on a generation of workers who weren't prepared for it.
National morale based on an economic sleight-of-hand is a poor substitute for national morale based on industries that are genuinely capable of taking on the world and winning.