Société Générale - Pressure Mounts for Resignation at French Bank

PARIS — Senior politicians here increased calls for the resignation of top executives at Société Générale, ahead of the board’s regular meeting, scheduled for early Wednesday.

The Société Générale executives Jean-Pierre Mustier, left, Philippe Citerne and Daniel Bouton, the chairman and chief executive.

“The pressure is very, very strong,” one of the bank’s directors said. “The politicians want a head to roll.” The director, who declined to be identified because of the delicacy of the situation, predicted that the bank’s chairman and chief executive, Daniel Bouton — and possibly one or two other senior managers — would be asked to step down as early as Wednesday. But he and other board members stopped short of saying that Mr. Bouton’s departure was a foregone conclusion.

Amid increasing political pressure on the bank’s management, employee groups revealed that three employees working on Société Générale’s trading desk had committed suicide in the last three years, at least partly because of stressful working conditions, the groups said.

On Monday the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said top executives should face “consequences” for the 4.8 billion euro loss, or $7.1 billion, tied to illicit trades by a junior trader. Then on Tuesday, Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the bank was in “crisis” and its leaders needed to examine “whether they should change the captain.”