The atmosphere is particularly gloomy on the financial markets.
After having aligned five sessions of sharp decline the CAC 40 fell Tuesday at the close below 6000 points.
The flagship index of the Paris Stock Exchange ended down 1.20% at 5,949.84 points.
He thus returned more than a year and a half back.
The CAC 40 lost more than 7.5% in one week and is now down nearly 16% since the start of the year.
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The other major world markets are world stock exchanges are on the same line.
The prospect of a more brutal monetary tightening than expected from the American central bank, the powerful Fed, to fight against the skid of inflation, panics the markets.
This assumption was considerably reinforced at the end of last week with the surge in inflation in May in the United States.
The rise in prices peaked at 8.1% last month, the highest for more than forty years.
Market rooms have also been under stress since the end of last week, after an offensive message from the European Central Bank (ECB) to curb soaring inflation on the Old Continent.
Defensive stocks and financials in good shape
Operators fear that these more restrictive monetary policies will precipitate the still convalescing global economy into recession.
Worried, investors took refuge with stocks deemed less sensitive to the economy, such as the Carrefour retail group, which ended up 1.54%.
Financials benefited from the prospects of higher rates with BNP Paribas (+ 1.42%), Societe Generale (+ 0.72%) or Axa (+ 1.24%).