Worries over sovereign risk tended to overstate the problem to an extent, Philippe Mills, the chief executive of Agence France Trésor, the French national debt agency, said on Thursday.

Mills told the National Asset Liability Management conference in London that much of the market movement over default concerns "reflects confusion rather than a real threat." There was still a very healthy appetite for government bonds, he explained, pointing to the France's successful issue of a 50-year bond in