Oil shares gushed higher as Brent Blend, the international oil-price benchmark, continued to rally and mounting investor demand for recovery plays spilled across the sector.
Oil prices clawed back above $13 a barrel for the first time in five months yesterday, adding to the boost that sentiment received this week from better-than-expected results from Total and Elf Aquitaine, the two big French producers.
Total surged 54 francs to Ffr640 and Elf Ffr66 to Ffr677, both up around 10 per cent in combined turnover of almost Ffr2 billion.
Paris added 44.29 to 3,690.75 on the CAC-40 index, with volume topping a heavy 20 million shares for the fourth day running.
Oils led the way up, but there were strong gains at Sanofi, which rose Ffr35 to Ffr765 with sentiment buoyed by strong results earlier this week, and at Thomson-CSF, where shares closed Ff10.60 better at Ffr188.8, Carrefour, strong lately on acquisition news, ran into profit-taking, slipping Ffr93 to Ffr3,700 in turnover of Ffr600 million.
Frankfurt drew comfort from overnight remarks by the Bundesbank president, Dr Hans Tietmeyer, who offered the reassurance that the Russian financial crisis would not lead to a crisis among German banks.
However, the Xetra DAX index turned back from its intra-day high of 4,952.49 and by the close of electronic trade stood 67.84 higher at 4,864.97.
Moscow was higher on signs that the parliament might confirm acting Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin in his post. The RTS index put on 1.7 to 63.13.
