Ex-banker president targets banks... Now that'd be quite an unexpecred headline! Shame it'll never be.

I have to disagree here. Disclaimer: I work for a bank but not super into the core financial stuff. Firstly, banks are already super heavily regulated; anti money laundering, terrorism financing, know your customer, etc. The reason crypto takes minutes for international transfers and banks can take days isn't because of technology, it's all of those checks on fraud happening. All the money leaving a bank account is, barring very advanced fraud, with the user's consent, but in fraud cases this is often done via social engineering (calling someone to get their codes from their bank card reader, or pretending to be a family member in need).

Because France is so authoritarian they can get away with using such a flimsy excuse. The President pushed through the pension age change without letting Parliament vote on it, and nothing happened with that - why should anything happen with this? And even if something does happen, they're starting a few steps below "think of the children!!" excuse so they've pre-emptively low-balled the negotiation.