The move would see France and Britain maintain a united front in the fight against excessive pay in the financial sector, and could calm fears that City firms could flee the UK.

Why? It’s not as though anyone was suggesting they were all going to go to Paris is it?

It seems that bankers are amazingly unpopular in many places:

“Momentum is building for a tax on bankers’ bonuses as European leaders gather for an EU summit in Brussels.

“The leaders of France and Germany have swung behind the idea after the UK announced a one-off supertax on banker bonuses in a pre-Budget report.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8405214.stm

Evidently, the smarter ones have got the message:

“Goldman Sachs’ top executives will forgo cash bonuses this year as the Wall Street bank reacts to intense pressure over its pay policy in the months after it received a $10 billion taxpayer bailout.

“Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive, and the 29 other members of its management committee will receive their share of the estimated $22 billion bonus pool in Goldman shares, which cannot be sold for five years.”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6952300.ece