Word: franc
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Deputies remembered that a year ago Mollet had forced through a 105 billion franc program of old age pensions and paid vacations and still had a proposal to socialize medicine on his books. The temptation was too great to resist: in the constituencies a vote against Mollet on the budget would not be a vote against the Algerian war (which most Deputies favor) but a vote against high taxes and against Socialist experiments...
Mollet's maneuver was timed to coincide with the National Assembly debate on the government's demand for 150 billion francs ($428 million) in new taxes. Last week, as the Assembly Finance Committee tore up Finance Minister Paul Ra-madier's tax plan (indirect levies which would fall heavily on upper-income brackets), there was a significant rise in the price of the gold Napoleon, a coin that Frenchmen traditionally buy when they become nervous about their country's currency. Suggestions that the franc be devalued* were described by Mollet as "crime and imbecility...
...cries of professed astonishment and dismay rang through Europe. There was talk of "British desertion," and Britain's NATO representative reported that NATO officials were "shocked." A typical French reaction came from the left-wing Franc-Tireur: "England has ceased to be a power. She is becoming an island once more. She is tiptoeing out of a political system built in Europe around NATO." Defense Minister Bourges-Maunoury called reliance on atomic arms a "facile policy," and not one for France, which prefers to think there will always be conventional wars. (European nations worried by British troop withdrawals from...
...themselves, the French want no kings ruling over them. The last Emperor of France was tossed off the throne 86 years ago. Today unthroned royalty from other lands are a franc a dozen in the haunts of Paris' international set. The businesslike, democratic sovereigns of northern Europe frequently turn up in town without causing a ripple. But Parisians in all walks of life have been in a dither for weeks over next week's visit of Britain's Queen Elizabeth. Day laborers and priestesses of haute couture, florists and jewelers, architects and restaurateurs, waiters and street sweepers...
Successful as these manipulations were in stalling off the dreaded wage increase, they have cost the government an estimated $195 million a year, in increased subsidies and lost taxes, at a time when the government needs every franc it can lay hands on. In just over a year, excessive consumption of imported raw materials-aggravated by the post-Suez necessity of buying U.S. "dollar oil"-has cut French gold and foreign-exchange reserves from $1.7 billion to $934 million. Between the Algerian war (daily cost: about $3,000,000) and increased old-age pensions, this year's national budget...