Pat Dollard

Tweet

We told you about this guy the other day…now he is a cult hero.

The lawyers for Jérôme Kerviel, France’s super-trader, say that he is stunned by his unwanted celebrity. If he takes a look at the internet he may be relieved to find that, mockery aside, he has become a world hero.

Over the past few days fan clubs and tribute sites have sprouted across the net: They include Facebook, dedicated sites such as Jeromekerviel.com, and Wikipedia, Youtube and Dailymotion.

After half a million Google searches yesterday, JK’s admirers are singing his praises as “The Che Guevara of Finance”, the “James Bond of the Soc Gen”. The real JK may have lost his Facebook friends on the day of his arrest, but 11 new Jérôme Kerviels are on Facebook at the moment, with 30 groups in French and English. On one he has over 900 fans, many of whom proclaim their love for the clean-cut Breton whose pals called him Tom Cruise.

JK’s new stardom comes in two flavours. There is mockery, much of it anti-French, apparently from professionals in the Anglo-American financial world. Within hours of the scandal breaking last Thursday, this lot was circulating the spoof news story about Kerviel being stressed out with his 30-hour working week.

Then there are the real admirers, who are voicing the widespread glee in France at the idea of a young provincial making fools of the capitalist establishment.

(TimesOnline)