Paris (AFP)

The European stock markets unscrewed Monday morning because of fears related to a new mutation of Covid-19, very contagious, active in England.

Around 10:55 a.m. (9:55 a.m. GMT), the Paris Bourse fell by 2.80%, that of Frankfurt by 2.31% and Milan by 2.11%.

The London Stock Exchange resisted better, falling 1.81% because the simultaneous fall of some 2% of the pound against the dollar advantage the accounts of multinationals, very represented in the index.

Finally, oil was also suffering heavy losses, 4.95% for Brent at 49.78 dollars, and 4.52% for WTI at 46.88 dollars.

"On the one hand, the reason for the decline is obviously the new strain discovered. The market readjusts instantly," notes AFP Alexandre Baradez, analyst at IG France.

The discovery of a mutant strain of the virus has rekindled investors' concern.

This variant would be "up to 70%" more contagious than the virus which spread in 2020 on the whole planet, even if it does not appear at this stage to carry "increased gravity".

Traffic is "out of control" in entire areas of the UK, the UK government has acknowledged.

More than 16 million Londoners and residents of south-eastern England have been confined again since Sunday.

Several countries including France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Canada have decided to suspend for several days all travel from British soil.

"This raises questions about vaccines that there were not two weeks ago," said Baradez.

"There is the fear that the virus will stay on longer and that the treatments must be readjusted."

However, European Union experts have come to the conclusion that the current vaccines remain effective against this new variant, the German government announced on Sunday evening.

Finally, the fall could be amplified by technical aspects.

"It had been a very long time since the indices were sideways", fluctuating very little, "this could accelerate the movement", continues the analyst.

- Safe haven assets -

The climate of mistrust pushed investors to take refuge in assets considered more secure.

This is the case with sovereign rates on the debts of European countries.

The 10-year Bund fell by three basis points, like the French OAT over the same period.

They were evolving close to their lowest of the year.

Likewise, the safe haven currency, the dollar gained 0.45% to 1.2203 dollars per euro, while gold gained 0.82% to 1.896.82 dollars.

As for the American markets, futures contracts, which serve as a basis for anticipating the movements of the opening, retreated but much more slowly, that of the flagship index, the Dow Jones, yielding 0.42%.

"They can be supported by the agreement on the support plan announced on Sunday. It would be surprising if they would stay away from the movement until the end of the year," said Baradez.

On the value side, "fear" of the new variant causes "a rotation" in the direction of investments, notes Neil Wilson, analyst at Markets.com.

With a return to safe havens such as technology or health.

- Transport, banking and leisure down sharply -

In Germany, auto values ​​were particularly affected: Daimler fell 3.84% to 56.42 euros, Volkswagen 3.74% to 147.64 euros, BMW 3.18% to 71.83 euros.

In France, Unibail sank 8.17% to 57.74 euros.

Banks like Natixis (-5.81% to 2.48 euros) or Societe Generale (-5.25% to 16.15 euros) occupied the bottom of the indices.

The airline sector was also severely penalized by the new travel restrictions: Easyjet plummeted 9% to 742.20 pence and IAG, parent company of British Airways, 8.92% to 142.40 pence.

"Covid values", such as health or technology, held up better.

Sanofi lost only 0.98% to 78.31 euros in Paris while the technological Worldline was down 0.58% to 75.28 euros.

© 2020 AFP