Of all the possible combinations to consolidate the French banking industry, two have regularly topped the list.

The first, by far the more international in scale, was the old idea of merging BNP Paribas with Société Générale. But if such a merger could have made considerable sense at one stage, it has now been overtaken by events and the chances of its ever happening look bleak. After all, in the past SocGen had always rebuffed BNP’s advances. BNP has since moved on, and with its acquisition this week of the Belgian and Luxembourg operations of Fortis has hoisted itself to the top of the eurozone bank deposit league. End of story.