Banks still up in arms over plans for La Poste

The seven main French banking groups have sent a letter to French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, in protest over plans to allow La Poste, the national postal services group, to offer credit. The Senate passed an amendment at the end of January to new postal legislation which will establish the change. The banks say there was no proper debate at the time of this vote, which took place during an overnight session at the Senate. They also say necessary conditions of transparency were not met in the reaching of the decision.