Top executives of second largest French bank resigns: Reports

Paris, Oct 20 (DPA) The top executives of Caisse d'Epargne, France's second largest banking group - which suffered a loss of 600 million euros ($804 million) - resigned Sunday, media reports said.

The mutual bank's chairman Charles Milhaud, chief executive officer Nicolas Merindol and head of finance and risks Julien Carmona had stepped down, French daily Le Figaro reported on its website.

Bernard Comolet, the head of the Ile-de-France regional bank and Alain Lemaire, head of Provence-Alpes-Corse regional bank, will take over the management board, the report said.

Last week French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde asked the government's bank oversight authority to look into Caisse d'Epargne, after it announced the massive loss in a derivatives trade.

The bank described the loss as a 'market incident,' which occurred during the week of Oct 6, when the Paris Bourse's CAC 40 index lost 22 percent of its value.

Caisse d'Epargne, which controls some 358 billion euros in savings deposits, said Friday in a statement that the loss was caused by 'the extreme volatility of the markets and the stock market crash of the week of Oct 6.'

President Nicolas Sarkozy Friday described the losses as 'unacceptable,' and warned that there would be consequences for those responsible.