This is a problem that they share with Italy and Spain, two struggling euro nations, whose debt, along with a toxic pile of “lesser” Club Med paper, is well represented on the balance sheets of French banks, although almost certainly at highly unrealistic valuations. Eurozone bond yields have had some pressure taken off them by the ECB that is now offering 3 year money, at 1%, to eurobanks, who can then buy Spitalian debt at yields of around 6% (for now…), locking in a very decent return, unless those debt instruments become subject to a proper Grecian haircut down the road. In that case the banks would find themselves in exactly the same situation they now find themselves in, ie insolvent, only more so.

The other factor that Noyer has chosen to ignore is that the UK banks have been through a recapitalisation process, which the French and eurozone banks have avoided so far, ex Dexia and shortly, one assumes, Commerzbank. Let’s not kid ourselves that UK Banking plc is a totally robust picture of health, but it has to be said, so I will, that France has significantly greater problems. On Friday the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision confirmed that French banks such as Soc Gen and Credit Agricole could not double count assets in their insurance company subsidiaries for Tier 1 capital purposes. This less than gallant Gallic attempt, to dilute the rules requiring the banks to hold more capital against “unexpected” losses, was thwarted by the Mexican representatives, who know a thing or two about a good currency crisis. Even more damning was the following statement, on the same day, by the rating agency, Fitch.

“Relative to other ‘AAA’ Euro Area Member States, France is in Fitch’s judgement the most exposed to a further intensification of the crisis. It has a larger structural budget deficit and higher government debt burden relative to Euro Area ‘AAA’ peers. Moreover, relative to non-Euro Area ‘AAA’ peers, notably the US (‘AAA’/Negative Outlook) and the UK (‘AAA’/Stable Outlook), the risk from contingent liabilities from an intensification of the Eurozone crisis is greater in light of its commitments to the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), as well as indirectly from French banks that are less strong than previously assessed as reflected in recent negative rating actions by Fitch.”

Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, head of Germany’s FDP group, part of the European Liberals, says it was “a mistake to let the British into the EU”. Over here some of us would lay the blame for accession at Edward Heath’s door… “Britain must now renegotiate its relationship with the EU,” he said. “Either they do it on their own initiative, or the EU refounds (sic) itself – without Great Britain. Switzerland is a model towards which Britain can turn itself.” Bring it on!

Meanwhile Daniel Cohen-Bendit, joint leader of the Greens in the European Parliament has labelled Mr Cameron “a weakling”. That’s up there with being savaged by a lamb Geoffrey Howe style, although Danny la Vert is in all probability a vegetarian…

Surprisingly it was the French newspaper Le Monde, seemingly keen to avoid further damaging relations between the French and English, which spoke to its readers of all the things they love about the UK, which, it said, are “impossible to number”; but they gave it their best shot. “From the concept of habeas corpus to the BBC, to Elizabethan poetry to John Le Carre, from rock to the invention of the Sixties, from London springtime concerts to Wimbledon, via Liverpool FC.” And all that from a French newspaper! Well one thing is for sure; we will “never walk alone”!

That this meeting of small minds has been hailed as a triumph – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the European Union summit achieved a “breakthrough” to a “lastingly stable euro” – leaves me lost for words, but not expletives, although I will spare your blushes dear reader.

She would like you to believe, as obviously she does and presumably along with the 25 other governments that can find no other place to hide, that by March the “fiscal compact” will be in place. This includes a cap of 0.5% of GDP on countries’ annual structural deficits and “automatic consequences” for countries whose public deficit exceeds 3% of GDP. As of now, including Germany, not one EU country matches up to these targets and it’s all going to get resolved in three months?

The markets, expecting something approaching a frisson of decisiveness, spent Friday like stunned mullets. And with Christmas rapidly approaching may well take to the mulled wine and other festive “remedies” and call it a day until the New Year. At which time they will all realise that nothing, absolutely nothing has been done to address the solvency of the European banking system.

Which anthem will they play at the Last Night of the Euro I wonder? How about the Doobie Brothers and “What a fool believes”?