It has almost become a box-tick for banks in the credit crisis. Announce results, insert contrite paragraph noting that senior executives will forgo bonuses, and hope that raging investors and politicians are appeased. Whether the bank has received state support, reported losses or sharply reduced profits, renounced incentives are a signal that managers and shareholders suffer together. The board of Société Générale, which has taken €1.7bn of French government support, and will seek the same again, thought otherwise. As hysteria over executive pay mounted, the bank last week awarded stock options to its chairman, chief executive and other senior staff. Now the executives have renounced them after the scheme prompted widespread indignation.

What was the board thinking? Fair enough, chairman Daniel Bouton and chief executive Frédéric Oudéa have held the bank together. It even turned a profit last year. Also, they had already turned down significant bonus payments for last year. Perhaps the board thought their remaining entitlement – 0.06 per cent of the group’s capital – was immaterial. However, with taxpayers about to foot the bill for the second stage of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s bank support plan, it is not the quantum but the principle that matters.