Perhaps schadenfreude – the pleasure gained from an-other’s misfortunes – may be too strong, but there are reasons why French market operators look at London and New York, or even Zurich, and secretly say: “At least there’s someone worse off than we are.”

The bulge bracket banks on Wall Street have sought the shelter of commercial banking, abandoning the hollowed out status of investment banks, while a UK government that once espoused a light regulatory touch has offered partial nationalisation to high street lenders.