Frankfurt - European shares opened sharply down Friday after the failure of the US car industry bail-out sent stocks tumbling in Asia.

With shares in major European bourses falling in early trading, Europe's blue-chip Stoxx 50 opened down more than 4 per cent at 2,379.99 points.

This followed a 2.8-per-cent fall in shares in Europe's leading market in London and a more dramatic 3.8-per-cent slump in Frankfurt, where the failure of the rescue plan for the crisis-hit US car industry sparked big falls in key German car stocks.

As the trading day got under way, Germany's Daimler AG, the maker of Mercedes Benz cars, had lost 7.3 per cent while Munich-based BMW AG, the world's leading luxury carmaker had dropped by 5.8 per cent.

The renewed falls in shares comes after a brittle calm had emerged on global share markets in recent weeks following the big sell off of stocks in the wake of the collapse of the giant US investment house Lehman Brothers and growing global recession fears.

However, traders said the plight of the US car industry has served to reignite investors' worries about the economic prospects for the coming year.

Also helping to fuel the renewed sense of nervousness was the news that Bank of America was slashing its workforce by up to 35,000 over the next three years. (dpa)