A potential $10 billion fine against BNP Paribas SA, France’s biggest bank, for violating U.S. trade sanctions could have repercussions affecting the stability of Europe’s financial sector, French President Francois Hollande warned ahead of his meeting with President Barack Obama.

U.S. authorities “must be fully aware of what is at stake from a sanction that would be not just unfair, but disproportionate, and with consequences well beyond a single French bank. Other banks could be targeted, introducing a risk, doubts, suspicions about the soundness of Europe’s financial system,” Hollande said late Wednesday at a press conference at the G7 meeting in Brussels.

Hollande plans to use a working dinner in Paris tonight with Obama to press his U.S. counterpart over potential American penalties faced by BNP Paribas, one of Europe’s biggest banks, which had net income of $6.6 billion last year. (Bloomberg)