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March 22 (Reuters) - A slump in Turkey's lira and worries
about prolonged lockdowns in Germany pushed European stocks
lower on Monday, with banks and travel shares taking the biggest
hit.
The pan-European STOXX 600 fell 0.5% by 0806 GMT,
down for the second straight session after hitting a one-year
peak last week.
The global mood soured as the Turkish lira dropped to a
record low after President Tayyip Erdogan replaced a hawkish
central bank governor with a critic of high interest rates over
the weekend.
Euro zone banks exposed to the country such as Spain's BBVA
, Italy's UniCredit, France's BNP Paribas
, and Dutch bank ING fell between 1.6% and
5.2%.
Travel stocks also dropped as a draft proposal seen
by Reuters showed Germany was set to extend a lockdown to
contain the COVID-19 pandemic into its fifth month.
The German DAX was down 0.5%, while France's CAC 40
fell 0.9% and UK's FTSE 100 dropped 0.8%.
British home improvement retailer Kingfisher rose
3.6% after it reported a 44% jump in full-year profit, driven by
the popularity of do-it-yourself (DIY) projects.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard
Orr)