Société Générale posted a 57% rise in the third-quarter net profit as a drop in loan-loss provisions helped offset revenue weakness in French retail banking and equities trading.
SocGen is France's second-biggest listed bank.
SocGen is keeping faith with its emerging markets exposure, cutting costs, and increasing cross-selling of products between business lines to better compete for market share in the absence of good growth at home.
Revenues fell 1.8% to €5.9 billion in what it called "an adverse environment".
Weak demand, low interest rates and a regulatory cap on processing fees weighed on its retail banking performance in France, where revenue fell 3.2%.
Revenues were flat in Russia, but increased strongly in Africa.
SocGen, which confirmed its 2014-2016 strategic plan targets, derives a quarter of its revenue from its operations in emerging markets and aims at maintaining the balance versus mature markets.
The bank reported a third-quarter net profit of €836m, up from €534m a year ago. Analysts expected earnings of €794.7m, on average, according to Thomson Reuters.
Loan-loss provisions were down by 41% versus the same time a year ago, helped by a drop in the cost of risk in corporate and investment banking.
Provisions for bad loans fell in France, were stable in Russia, but increased in Romania. The bank said its litigation provisions were unchanged at €900m versus the previous quarter.
Société Générale's corporate and investment bank, which is traditionally weighted more towards equities trading than fixed income, saw a 25% slump in equities trading revenues on the back of low volatility and volumes in the third quarter.
