Jean-François Lepetit, head of the Commission des Opérations de Bourse (COB), the French securities regulator, has dampened expectation that the French financial community is pressing for a single European securities regulator.

Lepetit said it would take at least five, and up to 10, years to organise the conditions for a supranational regulator, or Eurocob: "You cannot create such an institution unless you have harmonised the securities activities of its member states and established a common text, mission and organisational structure."