This aerial view shows the La Defense business district and the Aillaud Towers of the Pablo Picasso area of Nanterre, north-west of Paris July 11, 2023. — AFP picLONDON, June 14 — French markets endured another brutal sell-off today, as political uncertainty unleashed the biggest weekly jump in the premium investors demand to hold French government debt since 2011 and bank stocks tumbled.
The premium investors demand to hold French government bonds over euro zone benchmark Germany meanwhile rose to its highest level since 2017 at around 77 basis points. French state-backed finance body SFIL postponed a bond sale on Friday, a lead manager memo seen by Reuters, in a sign of how market unease was rippling out.
France’s debt to gross domestic product ratio is above 100 per cent, and its deficit is around 5 per cent. Its credit rating was downgraded last month by S&P Global.