The Paris stock exchange has lost 2.3 million participants since the end of 2008 as the financial crisis turns people off investing, a study by firm TNS-Sofres-SoFia said today.
The proportion of French people playing the stock market has dropped from 13.8% at the end of 2008 to 8.5% as of March 2012.
This is according to the study for France's La Banque Postale and Les Echos business newspaper.
"There is so much uncertainty since the sub-prime crisis and the euro zone crisis that individuals no longer really believe in the Bourse," Michael Pergament, research director at TNS-Sofres, said
A poll of 2,002 French people released with the study showed only 5% saying they were interested in buying stocks and only one in 10 saying it was a "good time" to invest on the stock market.
The poll, conducted in April, found 91% of respondents considered stock holdings "risky", with 56% considering them "very risky", up from 48% in 2011 and 33% in 2007.
