The market for non-preferred senior bank debt got off to a flying start on Tuesday as investors ploughed more than 5bn of orders into Credit Agricole's inaugural trade in the format, Reuters reported. One of 2016's most eagerly awaited deals in the European financials market, the trade is seen as the key to unlocking a wave of new loss absorbing senior debt to be issued by banks across Europe as they square up to new regulations. French peer Societe Generale has already planted a flag in the sand for its own inaugural transaction, announcing a mandate late on Tuesday morning.

Credit Agricole is poised to become the first bank to issue a new form of senior debt, thwarting expectations that BNP Paribas would open the new market and providing a much-needed template for what is expected to become a new European standard, Reuters reported. The issuer announced the inaugural non-preferred senior bond offering on Thursday, bringing one of the most eagerly awaited deals in the European financial bond market in 2016. The new security, which will sit between traditional senior and Tier 2 debt, has been almost a year in the making.

The French government, which owns the remaining 33.3 percent of STX France, hopes to strike a deal that separates the French arm from its South Korean parent and leaves the French state with a blocking minority stake. Aside from the stake ownership, France also has special bid-blocking powers related to strategic industries such as defense. "We have two intervention tools and should there be offers that do not fit our industrial aspirations we will not hesitate to use them," Sirugue told Reuters.

French government officials and bankers gathered in Paris Wednesday to promote the city as a financial capital of Europe that could take over from London after the U.K. vote to leave the European Union, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a rare moment of unity across the political and corporate divide in France, Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls addressed hundreds of bankers alongside Valérie Pécresse, the center-right head of the Paris region who has led the charge to lure financial services to the French capital in the wake of the U.K. referendum.

Solocal Group began a court-backed process to restructure 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) of debt, its second reorganization in about two years, Bloomberg News reported. The French directories publisher asked the Commercial Court of Nanterre to appoint a restructuring adviser, triggering a default event on 350 million euros of June 2018 bonds, according to a statement Thursday. The Paris-based company’s shares and bonds tumbled. Solocal, previously called PagesJaunes, has warned it won’t be able to repay debt due in 2018 as online services lure users from traditional print directories.

French President François Hollande’s government said Wednesday it will ramp up austerity measures in the next two years to stay on track with budget targets, despite a looming presidential election, The Wall Street Journal reported. The French finance ministry said it would find an additional €3.8 billion ($4.31 billion) of savings this year and another €5 billion in 2017 to ensure France meets its pledge of getting the budget deficit under the European limit of 3% of economic output. The belt-tightening indicates Mr.

Two of Europe's most powerful central bankers have called on the eurozone to form its own treasury and push forward with a quantum leap in integration to secure the single currency's future, The Telegraph reported. Germany's Jens Weidmann and France's newly appointed François Villeroy de Galhau urged member states to move towards a "comprehensive sharing of sovereignty" which would include a common 19-member treasury and an "independent fiscal council" with a eurozone parliament.

French President François Hollande said Monday he will pour more than €2 billion ($2.2 billion) in public money into apprenticeships and training schemes as part of an emergency plan to combat the unrelenting rise in unemployment, The Wall Street Journal reported. The French leader said economic growth remains too weak to have a sustainable impact on unemployment, which has crept upwards throughout his presidency to reach 10.6% last year, an 18-year high.

The number of jobless in France rose to a new record in October even as the wider measure of people looking for work showed tentative signs of stabilising, the Financial Times reported. Figures from the labour ministry showed 42,000 additional people were out of work last month, bringing the total number of jobless to 3.59m. The increase was the biggest monthly jump in at least two years and will doubtless deal a blow to President Francois Hollande’s pledge to set the economy back on track and create more jobs.

The Marseille commercial court on Friday selected Corsican transport entrepreneur Patrick Rocca as preferred bidder for France-Corsica ferry operator SNCM, Reuters reported. The ruling clears the way for SNCM majority shareholder Transdev, jointly owned by water and waste group Veolia and French state bank CDC, to sell SNCM. The company has been under court protection since late 2014, when it failed to repay a loan to Transdev, which owns 66 percent of SNCM. An SNCM sale would allow Veolia and CDC to unwind their Transdev 50-50 joint venture.