Thus far, 2012 has witnessed a marked trend of corporates eschewing bank lending and turning instead to the debt capital markets. By acting quickly, the DCM team at SGCIB has put itself at the forefront of many of these deals.

Keeping Greece in and allowing massive European Central Bank intervention are the best ingredients for saving the eurozone. But the case for common eurozone bonds is less clear.

When the Macquarie and Eiffage consortium, Eiffarie, won a controlling stake in APRR, the highly leveraged French motorway company, Eiffarie knew it needed to gain quick access to the market to refinance APRR's loans. Eiffarie's team established a €6bn euro medium term note programme, and then in mid-November 2011 decided to return to the market with a €500m four-year deal to help repay its outstanding acquisition loan. The result defied even the most optimistic expectations.

French giant Crédit Agricole has been buffeted by speculation surrounding the fate of the eurozone, but CEO Jean-Paul Chifflet explains how the right combination of international expansion and domestic branch network has kept the bank well positioned.

BNP Paribas' acquisition of Fortis has considerably increased the size of the bank's Corporate & Investment Banking arm's balance sheet. The French bank says now is the time to use it to win advisory business.

Although France's banking sector has been dealt a few blows during the past two years, its retail sector remains strong compared with its European peers. Writer Wendy Atkins