Word: france
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...franc was falling (to 470 for $1 last week against an official rate of 350) and there was talk of another, drastic devaluation. Blueprints for a new French tank, theoretically one of the best in the world, gathered dust on the drafting board because prices have climbed too high to produce it. Costs of French fighter planes have shot up as much...
German until World War I, a League of Nations mandate of the French for 15 years after, the Saar has been a virtual French protectorate since World War II's end. Its mines and foundries supply 20% of France's coal, 15% of her iron and steel. Yet its people are primarily German; in the 1935 League plebiscite, 90% of them voted for union with Germany. French High Commissioner Gilbert Grandval, an ardent Gaullist, was not content with tying the Saar to the French economy, with which it has a natural industrial affinity. He was also determined...
...French franc was on a bobsled run, and the French government seemed powerless to stop it. It had skidded down to a low of 460 to the dollar...
...France would still have to increase its taxes and cut its public works spending to meet its budget. But the dollar pinch was over, and imports could be resumed. At week's end the franc was on the upswing: 438 to the dollar...
Premier Rene Pleven's precarious four-month-old French government last week risked a vote of confidence. Pleven had had the courage to make the issue France's new austerity program : a 200-billion-franc tax increase, a 40% cut in dollar imports. He knew that he would be fought by Communists on the left and Gaullists on the right. He could not count on the help of the Socialists, who had announced that they would abstain. "If we get less than a ten-vote majority, we'll resign," said Pleven. "If we get more than twelve...