It is Brittany versus the French establishment. The way that Jérôme Kerviel, the rogue trader at Société Générale, has been treated by everyone from the bank to politicians and media has caused the north-western French province where he grew up to close ranks around him and express their disgust at Paris and the rest of the country’s way of doing business.

“If you talk to anybody here they will tell you their feeling is that it is Paris or the big people ganging up on the small Breton. We don’t like it,” says Jean-Pierre Le Gall, the deputy mayor of Mr Kerviel’s hometown, Pont L’Abbé.