'Rogue trader' scandal inspires French play
AFP
PARIS - A French Riviera theatre is putting on a play based on the rogue trading scandal at Societe Generale bank to mark one year since the onset of the global financial crisis.
"Le Roman d'un trader" (Story of a Trader), a comedy loosely based on the multi-billion euro losses blamed on SocGen trader Jerome Kerviel in 2008, will run at the Nice theatre for three weeks from September 23.
"It seemed impossible to me not to mark this ill-fated first anniversary," said Daniel Benoin, the director of the play which stars up-and-coming young actor Lorant Deutsch as the 32-year-old Kerviel.
"I think theatre is the art form most able to look at an event like this and spark a reaction, a thought process in the audience, including by making them laugh," he wrote in the production notes.
"This play seemed most able to show, often with humour, the incredible waste sparked by the end of financial capitalism."
Kerviel and a former assistant are expected to face trial over charges that they exposed SocGen to losses of 4.9 billion euros (7.1 billion dollars) by hiding risky derivatives trades.
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 many banks later wrote off far greater sums in the credit crunch.
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