FRANKFURT— Deutsche Bank AG on Thursday said it would eliminate thousands of jobs and shut operations in several countries, the latest European bank taking sweeping action to arrest declining profits.

The biggest lender in Europe’s most powerful economy will cut 35,000 jobs from its payroll and make a raft of other changes to fix a bank its new co-Chief Executive John Cryan described as saddled with broken technology and “poor historic behavior.”

Like other European banks, Deutsche Bank is facing headwinds on several fronts, as profitability is hit by tougher regulations and capital requirements, volatile market conditions and stiffer competition from global rivals, particularly U.S. banks.

Some are retrenching under shareholder pressure to focus on squeezing profits out of operations where they have scale. Barclays PLC is in the process of slimming down its investment bank following the appointment of a new CEO. Credit Suisse Group AG last week announced a multibillion-dollar capital raise and a pullback from wealth management in the U.S. Asia-focused Standard Chartered PLC is also making deep cuts, chopping one in four top managers.

“It’s clear that the Europeans have much more significant restructuring ahead of them,” said Nomura banking analyst Jon Peace. “It’s been more difficult to be super-efficient in Europe.”