France’s BNP, SocGen Beat Retreat as Europe’s Crisis Deepens

BNP Paribas SA and Societe Generale SA, France’s two largest banks, are trimming about 300 billion euros ($405 billion) off their balance sheets as Europe’s deepening debt crisis threatens to make them too big to save.

At the end of March, French financial firms had $672 billion in public and private debt in Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain, according to Basel, Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements. That’s the biggest exposure to the euro-area’s troubled countries and almost a third more than German lenders. The four largest French banks have 5.9 trillion euros in total assets, including loans and bond holdings, or about three times France’s gross domestic product.