The French market fell in afternoon trading Wednesday, as concerns remained about the political deadlock in Greece.
Greece is facing a political impasse after voters turned down the parties that accepted the international bailout terms in the Sunday elections. Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Greece's left-wing Syriza bloc, said on Tuesday the vote had "clearly nullified" the EU/IMF loan agreement.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe warned against renegotiating the fiscal compact and said such a move could unleash market turbulence. The current situation in Greece is extremely "difficult and tense," reports said citing his interview to Europe 1 radio.
The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone bluechip stocks is losing 1.13 percent, while the Stoxx Europe 50 index, which includes some major U.K. companies, is falling 0.95 percent.
The CAC 40 index erased its early gains and is currently falling 0.74 percent.
Veolia Environnement is falling 2.6 percent, thus leading the decliners. Media house Vivendi is losing 2.3 percent.
Credit Agricole and BNP Paribas are declining 1.6 percent each. Societe Generale is moderately lower after HSBC raised the stock to "Overweight" from "Neutral."
Air France-KLM is up 0.4 percent. The airline reported a growth in passenger traffic and capacity for April boosted by improved performance in Europe, Americas and Asia/Pacific.
Alcatel-Lucent is gaining 1.3 percent.
Elsewhere in Europe, the German DAX is losing 0.07 percent and the UK's FTSE 100 is losing 0.62 percent. Switzerland's SMI is dropping 0.75 percent.
In economic news, Germany's exports grew unexpectedly in March, boosting trade surplus above expectations. Both exports and imports reached record monthly levels in March, signaling that the biggest eurozone economy is showing some resilience despite the sovereign debt crisis in the 17-nation bloc.
Trade surplus was 17.4 billion euros in March compared to a 14.9 billion euros surplus in February. Economists had expected a more modest increase in surplus to 14.3 billion euros. Exports rose 0.9 percent month-over-month, while imports increased by 1.2 percent.
Worries concerning Greece weighed on Asia/Pacific too. Among major markets, Australia's All Ordinaries lost 1 percent, China's Shanghai Composite Index retreated 1.7 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 0.8 percent. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index declined 1.5 percent.
In the U.S., futures point to a lower open on Wall Street. In the previous session, the major averages ended the session well off their worst levels but remained stuck in the red as uncertainty about the political situation in Europe continued to weigh on the markets. The Dow fell 0.6 percent, the Nasdaq dropped 0.4 percent and the S&P 500 slipped 0.4 percent.
In the commodity space, crude for June delivery is sliding $0.59 to $96.42 per barrel and June gold is dropping $21.2 to $1583.3 a troy ounce.
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