S&P accidentally announces downgrade of French debt

LONDON. November 11. KAZINFORM Standard & Poor's accidentally released a message to some of its subscribers on Thursday saying that it had downgraded French debt from its top AAA rating; Kazinform refers to BBC.

S&P said it was investigating what had gone wrong and stressed that France still had an AAA rating.

The French market regulator AMF said it was also investigating how the error could have happened.

It came on the day that the difference between the yield of French and German bonds hit a record high.

At the end of Thursday's trading, the yield on a French OAT 10-year bond was 3.456% while the yield on a German 10-year bond was 1.776%.

Another ratings agency, Moody's, warned last month that France's "financial strength has weakened" and that it was "among the weakest of its AAA peers".

Moody's said it would decide within three months whether to change France's outlook from stable, indicating it was considering a downgrade; Kazinform cites BBC.

To learn more go to www.bbc.co.uk