It should be Benoit Coeure, economist and official of the French Treasury, the successor to the ECB board of the recent resignation Lorenzo Bini Smaghi. According to the Financial Times, the other two possible candidates (Ramon Fernandez and Xavier Musca, themselves senior French government officials) are no longer in the running.
The appointment of a Frenchman to the European executive committee was a matter of course, after the Berlusconi-Sarkozy agreement and the official investiture of Mario Draghi as president of the central bank and the consequent resignation of Bini Smaghi, now in the running (but with few chances) for the seat of governor of the Bank of Italy.
