Moody's cuts France, UK, Austria outlooks to negative

A Union flag flies near Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in London October 24, 2011.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rating agency Moody's warned on Monday it may cut the triple-A ratings of France, the United Kingdom and Austria while it downgraded the ratings of Italy, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta.

The rating agency said it was making the changes "in order to reflect their susceptibility to the growing financial and macroeconomic risks emanating from the euro area crisis."

The rating outlook of the nine countries was set to negative "given the continuing uncertainty over financing conditions over the next few quarters and its corresponding impact on creditworthiness," Moody's said in a statement.

The move follows a similar one by Standard & Poor's last month, when France and Austria lost their triple-A status while Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia were downgraded.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Leslie Adler and Andrew Hay)