LONDON, July 1 (Reuters) - Banking shares led a surge by
French stocks and the premium investors demand for holding the
country's bonds plunged on Monday following a far-right win in
Sunday's first round of voting that somewhat eased investors'
uncertainty.
Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) party and its allies
scored a historic win on Sunday, but the final outcome will
depend on days of alliance-building and next week's
parliamentary election run-off.
The CAC 40 jumped 2.7%, compared with a 1% rise in
the regional STOXX 600, making the Paris blue-chip
index the region's best performer.
French assets had been battered since President Emmanuel
Macron's surprise June 9 decision to call a snap election, as
the prospect of either the far right, or far left, gaining a
majority raised the risk of a swell of spending that could
undermine the government's fragile finances.
Shares in the country's three largest lenders, BNP Paribas
, Credit Agricole and Societe Generale
rose between 4.8% and 7.0%.
"The result is probably better-than-feared, but not as good
as the status three weeks ago pre-elections," Jefferies chief
economist Mohit Kumar said.
"We could still be looking at the next few years of
political paralysis in France with a stalling of the reform
process. However, any fears of Frexit or a euro area breakup
would be unfounded," he said.
French 10-year government bond prices edged up,
pushing yields down by about 2 basis points to 3.272%, which
helped narrow the gap between French 10-year debt and German.
The premium narrowed by 7 bps to 73.4 bps, set
for its largest one-day drop since November 2022, but remained
within sight of last week's 12-year highs above 82 bps.
The RN and its allies had 33% of the vote, followed by a
leftwing bloc with 28% and Macron's centrists with just 20%,
official results showed on Monday.
"A hung parliament remains the most likely outcome. Whereas
RN might possibly still win an absolute majority of seats in the
second round, this now looks even slightly less likely than it
did before," said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at
Berenberg.
"The tail-risk scenario that the united left could take
power and implement its costly agenda seems to have receded
further," he added.
The euro, meanwhile, rose by as much as 0.6% to a
two-week high of $1.07705. Against the Swiss franc - often used
as a safe-haven alternative - the euro rose 0.63% to 0.9686
francs, its highest since June 7, before Macron's shock election
call.
(Additional reporting by Alun John and Stefano Rebaudo;
Editing by Helen Popper)