French bank Societe Generale said on Sunday four of its bosses would give up stock options they had awarded themselves earlier this month causing public outcry because the bank is benefiting from state aid.

In order to stop the current controversy, we have decided to give up the benefit of these stock options, they wrote in a letter to SocGen employees.

The bank said on Wednesday it had decided to award 150,000 stock options to Chief Executive Frederic Oudea, 70,000 to Chairman Daniel Bouton and 50,000 each to Oudea's deputies, Didier Alix and Severin Cabannes.

They had already said they would not exercise any options while the group was benefiting from government aid. (Reporting by Anna Willard and Laure Bretton)

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