VIENNA (dpa-AFX) - French shares held steady in early trade Thursday, even as worries over Italy's fragile banks and a drop in prices of commodities such as copper and crude oil instilled some caution among traders in the run-up to the Christmas weekend.
The benchmark CAC 40 was up 7 points or 0.15 percent at 4,840 in opening deals after declining 0.3 percent in the previous session.
Sanofi, which has been in advanced talks to buy Actelion, saw shares rally nearly 2 percent after Johnson & Johnson resumed talks over a deal with the Swiss biotech group.
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