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French stocks soar, bonds gain in post-election relief rally
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French stocks soar, bonds gain in post-election relief rally
Jul 1, 2024 12:42 AM

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)

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