Paris (AFP)

The Paris Bourse slipped 1.89% on Friday at mid-session, weighed down by the resurgence of health concerns and their impact on economic activity.

At 12:45 p.m. (10:45 a.m. GMT), the CAC 40 index lost 95.5 points to 4,946.85 points. Thursday, it had finished down 0.60% after four sessions of increase.

"The uptrend has faded due to low volumes and growing uncertainty," said Pierre Veyret, ActivTrades analyst.

After the first exchanges around 5,000 points, the Parisian odds quickly unscrewed to rebound only at the approach of 4,920 points.

The first subject of fears for investors in Europe, "the increase in the number of new infections of Covid-19 and the new restrictions" which may result from it, according to Milan Cutkovic, analyst at AxiCorp.

Thus, travelers arriving from France to enter the United Kingdom will have to observe from Saturday morning a quarantine of two weeks, announced Thursday evening the British government, Paris promising a "reciprocity".

People arriving from the Netherlands are also affected by this restriction, to which Spain has been subject since the end of July.

The number of new daily cases in France continues to rise, rising to 2,669 on Thursday.

At the same time, the British government announced for Saturday the next stage of its deconfinement, initially planned for the beginning of August and delayed due to the resurgence of cases on British soil.

The marks of the pandemic were again visible on the occasion of the publication of the main indicator of consumption in China. Retail sales continued to decline in July, as experts anticipated a slight increase.

In contrast, industrial production rose 4.8% over one year, at the same pace as in June.

- Still no deal in the United States -

In addition to these gloomy health and economic data, the markets, which are counting on forthcoming fiscal stimulus measures in the United States, "feel disappointed by the lack of agreement between the Republicans and the Democrats", estimates Mr. Veyret .

Officials on both sides this week reported the deadlock in negotiations.

The four decrees signed on Saturday by Donald Trump, putting in place measures towards job seekers or people in difficulty to pay their rent, risk being challenged in court since it is in Congress that the American Constitution confers most the country's budgetary decisions.

In terms of indicators, the markets are awaiting retail sales in the United States in the early afternoon.

In this context, cyclical stocks, sensitive to the economic cycle, suffered the most.

This is the case for banks, such as Société Générale (-2.87% to 13.79 euros), BNP Paribas (-2.73% to 35.98 euros), and Crédit Agricole (-2.47% to 8 , 69 euros).

The tourism sector, such as the hotel group Accor (-3.13% to 24.41 euros), or the airline industry, with a loss of 2.84% for Airbus to 71.22 euros and 4.96% to 3 , 85 euros for Air France-KLM suffered a sharp decline after the British announcement.

© 2020 AFP