A document detailing that a French working group is seeking to create a super eurozone clearing house, which was leaked to Financial News yesterday, will shock supervisors and policymakers across the world. In the face of the most severe financial crisis in memory, the primary concerns of senior French officials appears to be expanding their own sphere of influence – and intervening in market infrastructures at the direct expense of market stability and efficiency.

Worse, they seek to clothe these actions as being in the interests of market stability.