Dig, dig, dig! Politicians across the world are promising big spending on public works projects to save jobs and prop up demand in beleaguered economies. But in France, where President Nicolas Sarkozy recently announced a €20bn rescue fund, the chief executive of one of the country’s biggest infrastructure companies warned on Tuesday that tight credit markets continued to present an obstacle to Keynesian-style remedies.

While Patrick Kron, chief executive of Alstom, a maker of power plants, trains and other heavy equipment, exulted in the world “rediscovering the Keynesian approach to the economy”, Gerard Mestrallet, his counterpart at GDF Suez, the French energy group, warned that the collapse of Lehman Brothers had killed the bond market. While GDF Suez was one of the first companies to raise debt post-Lehman, the market remains depressed, even if it is no longer completely frozen.