Jérôme Kerviel: French hero; enemy of capitalism

It seems the world has found a new hero in Jérôme Kerviel, the "rogue" French trader who helped lose more than $7 billion of Société Générale funds last week when he allegedly exposed nearly $74 billion to risk without anyone else's knowledge. The chastened French bank duly posted an "explanatory note about the exceptional fraud" on its Web site, but not everyone is engaging in the same type of public hand-wringing.

In fact, a number of Internet groups have already emerged to canonize Kerviel for his dastardly feat, according to Charles Bremner of The Times of London. His fans consist of two camps: banking industry folks, who mercilessly mock the French traders for missing such a large fraud—most likely due to their harrowing 30-hour work weeks—and French anti-capitalist types who delight in any anti-establishment activities conducted by the new Che Guevara of the finance world. 

The overnight star even has his own fan group on Facebook: "Jerome Kerviel should be awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics." And ladies, click here to buy your "Jérôme Kerviel's Girlfriend" T-shirts.