Market activity since the start of 2011 has improved from the fourth quarter 2010, which was hit by the rescue of Ireland and sovereign debt fears, French bank Societe Generale's deputy chief executive told Reuters Insider television.

It is however too early to gauge the financial impact from unrest in Egypt after popular protests swept President Hosni Mubarak out of power, Severin Cabannes added in an interview.

The market situation (between) January and now is slightly better than what we saw in the last quarter...We can see since the beginning of the year a better trend, he said.

Cabannes declined to say whether he believed the euro zone crisis was wholly over, but said the political will to keep the currency bloc in a healthy shape was growing ever stronger.

Cabannes also said SocGen's operations in Russia, which turned profitable at the end of 2010, would see profits grow by around 5 to 10 percent in 2011.

Asked whether SocGen would follow BNP Paribas and Citibank in closing its Ivory Coast operations following disputed elections and political turmoil, Cabannes said there were no plans as yet to shut down operations.

(Reporting by Lionel Laurent and Matthieu Protard)

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