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French rogue trader takes to Riviera stage
AFP - Wednesday, September 23
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French actor Lorant Deutsch performs as disgraced ex-Societe Generale trader Jerome Kerviel at the Theatre National de Nice in Southern France during the rehearsal of the play "Story of a Trader". The comedy about the 2008 multi-billion euro losses blamed on Kerviel will run as part of a special programme on finance and the economic crisis.
NICE, France (AFP) - – A French Riviera theatre is revisiting the rogue trading scandal at Societe Generale bank with a play that has created a nationwide buzz with its critical take on capitalism.
"Le Roman d'un trader" (Story of a Trader), a drama loosely based on the multi-billion-euro losses blamed on SocGen trader Jerome Kerviel early last year, opens at the Nice national theatre on Wednesday.
"The play was inspired by the Kerviel case but it is not Kerviel's story," said theatre director Daniel Benoin. "It's much more than that."
"It deals with the problem of a system. The book denounces the fact that banks have become casinos," he said ahead of the premiere.
"I hope that the play will create awareness about what is going on and perhaps plant the idea that it needs to stop."
When the scandal broke in January 2008, Kerviel's losses amounted to one of the biggest rogue trading scandals in history and shook confidence in French banks.
But eight months later, American investment giant Lehman Brothers folded, triggering a tsunami in world finance and prompting governments to step in and offer billions in bailouts that dwarfed Kerviel's transactions.
Over the past weeks, Benoin's project has been featured on television, radio and newspaper reports, tapping into French hostility toward banks as the economy continues to shed jobs.
Now 32 and holding down a new job as a consultant, Kerviel is awaiting trial and his lawyers point to the global financial meltdown to argue that their client is a mere scapegoat for a dysfunctional industry.
Described by his colleagues as quiet, unassuming fellow, Kerviel turned himself in to police in January 2008 while Societe Generale chairman Daniel Boutin thundered that he was a "terrorist and fraudster".
Written by playwright Jean-Louis Bauer, the show features a thirtysomething trader, who struggles with weight problems and satisfies his longing for peer approval by becoming a wheeler-dealer.
The trader is played by Lorant Deutsch, a young actor better known for roles that require donning period-era wigs than getting into the skin of a financial shark.
The stage decor evokes the La Defense highrise complex west of Paris where many French banks are headquartered.
The play opens on a fatal weekend when the bank chairman discovers that a rogue trader has gambled away 25 billion euros, pushing the bank to the brink of insolvency -- a scenario closely resembling events at Societe Generale.
"The play has a more tragic end than in the Kerviel case," Benoin said.
He insists the play is not trying to lecture anyone on economics.
"It's a work of theatre, with lots of laughs and eccentricities."
But the director quickly adds that it also does not miss its target.
"Five billion euros in losses at Societe Generale, that's two and a half times the budget of the culture ministry," he quipped.
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