Paris shares up sharply mid-afternoon

Share prices were up sharply across a range of blue chips in afternoon trading, rallying from opening lows as investors covered short positions made ahead of this morning's string of discouraging European corporate earnings, dealers said.

At 3.18 pm, the CAC-40 index was up 94.19 points or 3.1% at 3,129.00, on volume of 1.8 billion euro.