A waiter at the Café Valmy next door to the Paris headquarters of Société Générale remembers Jérôme Kerviel as being different to many of the brash banking types that drank there.

“He would normally drink a beer. He didn’t show off or anything by drinking champagne,” says the waiter. “You would have no idea he was playing with that amount of money. He just seemed a normal bloke, you know.”