On May 9, 2011, we lowered our sovereign ratings on Greece to 'B/C' from 'BB-/B' and maintained them on CreditWatch negative, reflecting rising rescheduling risk for Greece's sovereign debt. We consider that French banking group Crédit Agricole (GCA) has a significant sensitivity to Greece's creditworthiness and economic prospects, primarily through subsidiary Emporiki's funding needs and exposure to local credit risk. We are lowering our ratings on Crédit Agricole S.A. and its related core subsidiaries to 'A+/A-1' from 'AA-/A-1+'. The stable outlook reflects our view that GCA's businesses are performing well, and that the group has a strong retained earnings capacity which would allow it to absorb possible losses from Greek exposures and build up capital at a pace, and up
