A growing realization that President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to hold snap elections in France may backfire sent the French stock market tumbling on Friday to its lowest level in two years, and prompted warnings from the French finance minister that the economy risks stumbling into a financial crisis.
Amid growing signs that Marine Le Pen’s far-right party may be ushered to the brink of power, France’s benchmark stock index, the CAC 40, slumped 2.7 percent.
The losses capped a weeklong losing streak that sent shares down more than 6 percent, wiping out all the bourse’s gains since the start of the year.
Among the hardest hit stocks were France’s biggest banks, including BNP Paribas and Société Générale, which hold hefty amounts of French sovereign debt.
Equally worrisome, the risk premium that investors demand to hold French government bonds over Germany’s, a eurozone benchmark, rose to the highest since 2017, the biggest weekly jump since 2012, when the euro debt crisis was underway.
Persons:
Emmanuel Macron’s, Société
Organizations:
CAC, BNP
Locations:
France