Noël Amenc is French, and proud of it no doubt. But the professor of finance at Edhec Business School is not proud of compatriots who are hounding hedge funds and private equity firms. He is adamant that these financial market players were in no way to blame for the financial crisis and that regulatory initiatives aiming to tie them down are wrong-headed.

He is not against regulating alternative investment managers. He just thinks the regulators are barking up the wrong tree with their proposals. They are taking a populist approach rather than trying to find real solutions to the issues of investor protection and systemic risk, he believes.