The Triumph of Love (Locks) Paris is known the world over as the 'City of Love' and lovestruck couples have found a new way to display their affection in a phenomenon that is sweeping across bridges >> Page10 around the world... love locks.
February 2012 Issue #28
Now is the last chance to spend your French francs ♦ The franc was first introduced in 1360 to pay for the king's ransom. ♦ Decimalised in 1795, it remained the country's currency until 2002. ♦ The deadline for exchanging old franc notes is February 17th 2012.
their face value in Euros based on the same fixed rate of 1 EUR = 6.55957 FRF that was used when the European currency was first introduced 10 years ago, i.e. €3.05 for a 20 franc note, €7.62 for a 50 franc note and €15.24 for a 100 franc note etc. Experts are advising, however, that if you have a pristine note, its value will triple over the next 5 years as a collectable, so it may be worth holding on to. It is difficult to estimate how many francs are still in circulation, but the Banque de France puts the figure at about the equivalent of €600 million, or nearly 4 billion French francs! Although the number of people cashing in the old currency has risen by a factor of 5 this year, there has not been the rush expected by many,
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I
f you believe everything that you read in the papers, the Euro may be heading the way of the dodo and the French franc could be on its way back. This is probably still very unlikely, but even if the franc did make a comeback, ‘old’ French francs will be no good to you… in fact, they will cease to be valid currency on February 17th. Anyone with a stash of old notes from some long forgotten holiday had better clean out the loft and cash in their francs before it is too late. A decade after France adopted the Euro, the Banque de France will stop exchanging old notes for Euros later this month. After this time, they will become little more than collector's items. All the notes can be exchanged for
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