S&P's euro zone downgrade "additional challenge": Noyer

PARIS (Reuters) - Ratings agency Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade the credit ratings of nine euro zone countries constitutes an additional challenge for the euro zone, ECB governing board member Christian Noyer said on Monday.

"We are in a period of crisis and 2012 will be without doubt a year full of challenges... The decision just made by one of the main credit rating agencies with regard to the countries of the euro zone obviously constitutes an additional challenge," Noyer said.

Noyer, who is also governor of the Bank of France, added that the ECB would continue to counteract abnormal market behaviour in order to assure the best possible monetary policy transmission.

(Reporting by Daniel Flynn, Editing by Geert De Clercq and Leigh Thomas)