Gordon Brown is not happy. His rescue plan for British banks, which everyone - including foreigners - admired when he presented it in October 2008, is not producing the hoped-for results. In the absence of credit, shops are closing and real estate is collapsing. Hence, his finance minister, Alistair Darling, evokes a new plan that could also involve recapitalizations.

    Why this failure? Because the banks have not played the game. A number of them have found the Brown plan too restrictive, notably because it requires that they cease paying dividends to their shareholders. In a speech he gave at the end of October, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King had warned bankers: "The actions undertaken are not intended to save the banks as such, but to protect the rest of the economy from the banks," he explained to management. Logically, the City hangs back, and today we witness a duel with buttoned foils between the government and the financial sector, praised to the skies yesterday for its key role in the dynamism of the British economy, criticized today for its cowardice and incompetence.

    The debate is not confined to Britain. In Germany also, voices - bankers' voices - are raised to denounce the limitations on the remuneration of financiers who demand the benefit of public assistance. The two European countries that have required the most rigorous compensation for assistance to the banking sector are both in a pre-electoral period. In France, where elections are further off, the government has been more clement. Do the banks therefore distribute more loans? There is no evidence for that assertion. French banks are also seeking to reconstitute their margins and limit their risks.

    Bank rescue plans are in the process of showing their effectiveness - there's been no Lehman Brothers' failure in Europe - but also their limitations, since demand is not picking up again. With no obvious impact from public assistance, it's normal for public opinion and governments to require quida pro quo. At issue is saving the banks. Not the bankers.

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    Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.

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