Word: franc
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What had brought on the disaster? One obvious cause: falling revenue and inflated costs had squeezed the profit out of the newspaper business. Ten years ago an eight-page paper sold for half a franc; today a four-pager costs 5 francs. And newsprint has gone from 2,500 francs a ton in 1939 ($62.76) to 35,000 ($114.63). Furthermore, the sins of the prewar press had been visited on the postwar press...
...Resistance pressmen who moved into the confiscated plants got help from the National Committee of Liberation. Each liberated Parisian daily got a 3,000,000-franc credit, enough newsprint for 50,000 copies...
...sent a message to Maurice Thorez, saying the door remains wide open . . . Gaston Palewski [one of the general's chief aides] has stated he is ready to engage in conversations with Jacques Duclos' chambermaid . . ." Newsboys brandished their headlines like victorious flags. "No more cold war," cried Franc-Tireur, "the ice is broken...
Clement Attlee and Ernie Bevin dissociated themselves from this dog-in-the-manger attitude-but they had both been angry when France (which shed its Socialist Premier for a Popular Republican) devalued its currency and permitted free trade in the franc. For one reason, it violated British Socialists' notions of a properly managed currency, and it hurt them worse to discover that it did not seem to hurt France...
This spring, the Belgian franc is (after the Swiss franc and the Portuguese escudo) Europe's hardest currency. Belgians had their worries, but they were better off than any other European people touched by the war. They had cake in the cupboard as well as hope in the future...