The key question on Monday about the third version of the BNP Paribas agreement to buy Fortis bank was not so much how it differed from the previous two, but whether it was still a good one for the French bank’s shareholders.

Baudouin Prot, BNP’s chief executive, argued that France’s biggest bank would be better positioned to meet the global financial crisis after the purchase of Fortis’s banking units in Belgium and Luxembourg.