Europe midday: North Korea tensions trigger volatility
Shares were holding near their worst levels of the session following further provocative remarks out of Pyongyang which were quickly followed by a response from the US president.
Responding to recent threats to the US, president Donald Trump warned America would respond to any threat with "fire and fury".
"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen... he has been very threatening beyond a normal state. They will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before," Trump said.
Soon after, North Korea's state-run news agency said Pyongyang was mulling a potential missile strike against the US Pacific island territory of Guam.
Against that backdrop, as of 1206 BST the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by 0.79% or 3.04 points to 379.61, with the German Dax off by 1.20% or 146.69 points at 12,145.25 and the Cac-40 retreating by 1.63% or 84.99 points to 5,133.43.
Commenting on Wednesday's geopolitical events, Mike van Dulken at Accendo Markets said: "Equities are nursing losses thanks to an unwelcome (unless of course you're short!) escalation in geopolitical tensions between the US and North Korea, both trading nuclear threats that have awoken volatility from its slumber and seen risk assets shunned in favour of the traditional safe havens."
In parallel, traditional safe havens such as gold were and the Japanese yen were higher, with the former rising 0.91% to $1,274.10/oz. while dollar/yen was lower by 0.52% at 109.76.
On the economic front, the French central bank's industrial sentiment gauge jumped from a reading of 103 for June to 105 in July.
That led the monetary authority to forecast that the country's gross domestic product would expand at a 0.5% quarter-on-quarter pace over the three months to September.
Meanwhile, ISTAT reported that Italian industrial production grew by 1.1% month-on-month in June (consensus: 0.2%).
Greek CPI was reported at up by 1.1% year-on-year for July after a gain of 1.0% in the month before.
Shares in E.On were ahead after the German power group reported better-than-expected figures for the first six months of the year thanks to bigger margins at its key network business.
Dutch lender ABN Amro posted a better-than-expected 45% increase in its second-quarter underlying profits to €960m.
Novo Nordisk was higher after beating analysts' estimates for its latest quarter.