FRANCE's Budget Minister, Mr Alain Lamassoure, said yesterday that an investigation was now taking place into 42 separate cases of possible wrongdoing relating to huge losses at the state owned Credit Lyonnais bank between 1992 and 1994.

The cases under investigation include 27 in France and 15 outside the country.

The bank ran up 21 billion francs (£2.5 billion) in losses between 1992 and 1994 in a disastrous expansion spree which transformed it into Europe's biggest bank before almost pushing it into bankruptcy.

It has twice been bailed out by the government, which hopes to privatise it by the year 2000.

The bank announced on Monday that it would shed more than 14 per cent of its French workforce between now and the end of 1998.

The 5,000 job cuts, its third round since its big losses, would lower the bank's payroll in France to 30,000 from 35,000.