The star CAC 40 index advanced 54.95 points to 6,326.49 points shortly after 08:00 GMT.

On Wednesday and Thursday, it had lost about 1.2%, weighed down by fears about the consequences of inflation on the economy.

But the Parisian rating was somewhat behind other European indices, due to the decline of luxury heavyweights after the announcement of the results of the Swiss giant Richemont.

“Equities rebounded slightly this morning after the Chinese authorities lowered one of their benchmark interest rates to support the real estate sector,” commented Xavier Chapard of La Banque Postale AM's research and strategy team.

However, he advocates "caution".

“There is already a lot of bad news priced in by the equity markets, as shown by the valuations which are now below their pre-Covid level”, he underlines.

The overall context is gloomy: "fears about rising inflation (and its impact on consumption) as well as the more restrictive monetary policy of central banks (which could propel some economies into recession) continue to cause apprehension investors," said Saxo Bank analysts.

It is in particular the poor results of the retail sector that are worrying investors because these companies are in the front line of seeing a drop in consumption.

At this stage, the Parisian rating has lost 3.20% since the beginning of the month and more than 11.5% since the beginning of the year.

Luxury fails with Richemont

French heavyweights LVMH (-0.63% to 565 euros) and Hermès (-1.47% to 1,039.50 euros) were down after the results of the Swiss luxury giant Richemont: the owner of the jewelry house Cartier has reported an operating surplus below analysts' forecasts, according to Bloomberg.

New delay for EDF

The French energy group has announced that the construction site for two next-generation nuclear reactors (EPR) at Hinkley Point in England will suffer a further delay of at least one year and additional costs of at least 3 billion pounds.

Its action nevertheless took 2.12% to 8.47 euros.

New investor at Air France-KLM

Air France-KLM rose 2.87% to 4.37 euros.

The American fund Apollo will invest 500 million euros in the capital of a subsidiary of Air France-KLM, the airline group announced on Friday, which will thus be able to reimburse part of the aid from the French state.

© 2022 AFP