European shares fall on recession fears

European shares opened lower on Monday, with French shares down nearly 1 percent, after weak economic data from China fueled fears of a global recession.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index fell 0.6 percent by 0715 GMT, after posting its first weekly gain in five weeks on Friday.

China’s April retail sales fell 11.1 percent, almost double expectations, while industrial production fell by 2.9 percent, while analysts were looking for a slight increase, raising fears that the world’s second-largest economy will contract this quarter amid the closure imposed to combat the outbreak of “Covid-19”. -19.

The travel and leisure sector led the losses among the sub-indices, down 1.4 percent. The shares of the healthcare sector were the biggest losers, while shares of luxury goods companies, including the owner of the Louis Vuitton brand, which derives a large part of the demand from China, fell 1.1 percent.

This trend was bucked by the telecommunications sector, which rose 0.6 percent, supported by a 3.5 percent jump in Vodafone after the UAE’s Emirates Telecommunications Group (Etisalat) bought a 9.8 percent stake in the company.