According to NY Times’ Eric Pfanner Misunderstandings between the French and visiting British vacationers are a traditional feature of summers in France. But did a British malentendu over another French summer staple — a fictional series of articles in Le Monde — contribute to a mysterious sell-off in French bank stocks last week?
That is the question that French politicians, business leaders and journalists — at least those who are left in Paris during the dog days of August — are asking, as they struggle to explain the plunge, which was accompanied by concerns about the country’s ability to pay back its debts.
The series, “End of the Line for the Euro,” looked at how a collapse of the single currency might play out, against the backdrop of French presidential elections next year. While the 12-part story was clearly labeled as fiction, it named real banks, like Société Générale, whose shares plunged 15 percent last Wednesday, prompting the bank to deny speculation that it was in financial trouble.
As market participants and journalists searched for possible reasons, the trail seemed to lead to London. There, The Mail on Sunday, a tabloid newspaper, had published an article in which it said Société Générale was “on the brink of disaster.” Société Générale and an Italian bank, UniCredit, were in a “perilous” state, the paper added, citing “a senior government source….”
Wait, wait...there's more at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/business/global/source-sought-for-false-story-on-french-bank.html
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