CAC 40 Up Slightly In Cautious Trade

(RTTNews) - French stocks are up slightly in cautious trade on Monday as the focus remains on the upcoming confidence vote on French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou's government. Investors, digesting the latest batch of regional economic data, are also awaiting the crucial U.S. non-farm payroll data due later in the week.

Aiding investor sentiment is a ruling by a U.S. appeals court that many of President Donald Trump's tariffs, which have upended global trade, were illegal.

The 7-4 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a lower court's finding that Trump had exceeded his authority in tapping emergency economic powers to impose wide-ranging duties. At the same time, the judges allowed the tariffs to stay in place through mid-October, giving Trump time to take the fight to the Supreme Court.

The benchmark CAC 40 was up 2.75 points or 0.03% at 7,706.65. The index had climbed to 7,744,64 earlier in the session.

Renault is up 1.8% and Airbus is gaining 1.5%. Pernod Ricard and Stellantis are up 1.4% and 1.2%, respectively. Sanofi and Societe Generale are up nearly 1%.

Kering is advancing 0.87%, while Dassault Systemes, Safran, LVMH, and Danone are up with modest gains.

STMicroElectronics is declining 2.1% and Edenred is losing about 1.1%. Bouygues is down nearly 1%, while Vinci, Veolia Environment, Thales, Legrand and Hermes International are moderately lower.

In economic news, data from S&P Global showed the HCOB France Manufacturing PMI rose to 50.4 in August 2025, expanding unexpectedly after initial estimates of 49.9 and up from 48.2 in July. This marked the first growth since January 2023.

Data from Eurostat showed the euro area unemployment rate dropped marginally in July. The jobless rate registered 6.2% in July compared to 6.3% in June. In the same period last year, the unemployment rate was 6.4%.

Eurostat estimated that the number of people out of jobs decreased 170,000 from June to 10.805 million in July. Compared to last year, unemployment fell 161,000.