The flagship CAC 40 index fell 0.46%, or 33.20 points to 7,260.97 points. The day before, it had lost 1.01%, already weighed down by concerns related to China.

"Markets sank into negative territory at midday, with the hearing of Fed boss Jerome Powell that was highly anticipated," said Lucas Excoffier, head of continental brokerage at Oddo BHF.

In a speech to a congressional committee, Jerome Powell hammered that "inflationary pressures continued to be high" in the United States and that there was still "some way to go to bring inflation down to 2%", the Fed's target.

The head of the Federal Reserve (Fed) especially indicated that "almost all" the members of the monetary committee of the institution "expect that it will be appropriate to raise interest rates somewhat again by the end of the year".

Last week, the Fed paused its rate hikes to assess the impact of its monetary policy, while warning, already on this occasion, that two rate hikes could still occur.

"The market continues to anticipate that the Fed's key rates will rise to 5.5% or 5.75%, which means that the next rate hike would potentially be the last, hence a certain wait-and-see attitude and an attitude of +we wait and see+," according to Lucas Excoffier.

Thursday's meeting of the Bank of England also encourages them to wait and see, given the latest figures for British inflation, which did not decline in May as expected by analysts and reached 8.7% over one year.

What "continue to put pressure on the Bank of England," says Mr. Excoffier.

Around 18:15 p.m., the interest rate on French 10-year debt was worth 2.95%.

Investors' doubts about the strength of the Chinese economy weighed again on Wednesday on luxury stocks, which lost between 1.46% for Hermès and 0.83% for Kering.

China's post-Covid economic rebound is not living up to analysts' expectations and the support measures announced this week were deemed insufficient.

Fimalac strengthens at Casino

The financier Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, via several companies including his holding Fimalac, said he held 12.05% of the capital of Casino, following an agreement concerning the debt of the parent company of the distributor in difficulty, Rallye, according to a notice of the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) published Wednesday.

The title took 11.30%, to 8.32 euros, and that of Rally gained 9.54%, to 2.02 euros.

The distributor also announced an agreement to postpone the payment of 300 million euros in tax and social charges.

© 2023 AFP