CAC 40 Gains After Bessent’s Appointment As US Treasury Secretary

French stocks traded higher on Monday after Donald Trump nominated Scott Bessent, a billionaire hedge fund manager and an advocate for deficit reduction, to lead the U.S. Treasury Department.

The benchmark CAC 40 was up 35 points, or half a percent, at 7,289 after rising 0.6 percent on Friday.

Atos SE shares jumped nearly 22 percent. The multinational information technology service and consulting company announced that the French State has made a non-binding proposal to buy 100 percent of the Advanced Computing activities of its BDS division for 500 million euros, based on an enterprise value for a period until May 31, 2025.

Airbus SE, an aeronautics and space company, added 1.4 percent after it announced the launch of a second tranche of its share buyback program, aiming to repurchase up to 2.12 million shares, between November 25 and January 24, 2025.