Word: france
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Silverblatt's feeling came from a dollar that this summer has hit all-time highs against nine foreign currencies, including the British pound, the French franc and the Italian lira. The surge has helped to propel American tourists abroad in ever growing numbers. Applicants at the 13 U.S. passport agencies have had to wait up to eight hours this summer just to reach the counter, and clerks have been working six-day weeks. The frantic pace should outstrip last year's, when U.S. travelers made a record 25.3 million trips abroad...
...prime rate that they charge corporate customers from 12.5% to 13%. That helped boost the dollar to record highs against the British pound and the Canadian dollar. The U.S. currency also hit a peak for the year vs. the Japanese yen, and a seven-year high against the Swiss franc. Many economists expect further hikes in interest rates and a continued strong dollar...
...hungry Finance Minister Jacques Delors swoops down from a helicopter to collect the franc used in the coin toss of a soccer match. Intent on projecting French military power abroad. Defense Minister Charles Hernu leads an attack against the tiny principality of Monaco: "Ack-ack-ack!" President Francois Mitterrand interrupts his compulsive globetrotting for a rare visit to Paris and, shuddering at what he finds, hightails away again...
...brutal: capitalism is a contagious disease, and the carrier is money. Bourgeois parents reward their sons for lying about money. The surest way out of a sticky situation is bribery. Currency is as counterfeit as the system it supports. A young man (Christian Patey) unknowingly passes a phony 500-franc note, but be cause his stubborn rectitude marks him as an alien in the kingdom of greed, he must suf fer an almost comic series of calamities: fired from his job, then jailed, then abandoned by his wife (Caroline Lang). His child must die. Finally, his spirit purified into psychosis...
Mitterrand's troubles can be traced to the economic austerity program he launched in 1982. During his first year in office, the Socialist President nationalized a flock of industries and tried to spend the country out of recession, but a sagging franc and surging inflation persuaded Mitterrand to return to the more cautious policies of his conservative predecessor, Valery Giscard d'Estaing. Under the direction of Finance Minister Jacques Delors, the Socialist government experimented with wage and price controls, cut spending and instituted an ambitious "industrial restructuring" that could over the next four years lead to the layoff...