Word: franc
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...improvement of working conditions must increase French production costs by at least 35%-and they are already among the highest in the world, most other countries having cheapened their prices by cheapening their money. Unquestionably this week Le Peuple Souverain thought they had won higher wages in gold standard francs, but every fiscal authority agreed that such wages simply cannot be paid in France, unless the franc is cheapened, devalued and Le Peuple Souverain thus duped. Alternatives would be drastic reorganization of French economy by a Bolshevist or Fascist dictatorship set up in the Third Republic...
Meantime the lame-duck Sarraut Government lashed about for foreign exchange speculators to tag as franc raiders, expelled one luckless Pole from the country as an example, discussed innumerable measures for the "defense'' of the franc, hoped it could pass on to the incoming "Popular Front" the unpleasant task of actual devaluation. Cried Finance Minister Marcel Régnier: "So long as I am Finance Minister there will be no measures restricting the gold standard. . . . We have ample reserves for our defense and the Bank of France possesses every means of action needed...
Principal action taken by the Bank of France last week was to boost the rediscount rate from 5% to 6%, the normal central banking method of inducing capi tal to remain in a country. But the flight from the franc continued...
...strength of that statement the franc rallied sharply at the beginning of this week, and stocks on the Bourse bounded up. Nevertheless, devaluation of the franc is implicit in any French New Deal. French foreign trade and, politically more important, French tourist trade have suffered woefully from devotion to gold. Having taken a 79% devaluation in 1928 and endured the preceding inflation, the French people, particularly its millions of small investors, hate & fear the idea of currency tampering. Lately, however, Jean Frenchman has begun to feel the terrible grind of deflation, and a shot in the economic arm, if reasonably...
Except in luxury lines like lace, perfume, hosiery, jewelry, most U. S. businessmen would have only academic interest in devaluation of the franc unless Britain deliberately pushed down the pound, perhaps leading in turn to another cut in the dollar. Consensus was that no such cycle would follow, that in world conditions recovery in France would more than offset the temporary confusion caused by a franc cut loose from gold...