Saturday, February 18, 2012

Too late for your francs...

So, this past Friday, February 17th, France finally ended their association with their former currency, the franc. By that I mean, 2/17 was the last day they would exchange people's francs for euro.

This makes France the second European country to finally finish any exchange with their former currency. In December Italy finally cutoff lira exchanges.

Apparently, Finland has until the end of the month, and Greece has until March 1st, unless they're booted from the Euro currency zone (which would likely be disastrous for the Europe).

Since they switched to the euro in 2002, the past ten years weren't enough for some people. Lines were long at most Banque de France across the major cities.

many countries don't actually have a timetable to stop exchanging their former currencies, while the Netherlands has until 2032 to exchange their guilders. That seems like they've had little faith in the ultimate survival of the euro.

When we were traveling around France in 2005, prices were given in both euro, that was still relatively new, as well as francs, so people could imagine how much it "cost" in their own terms. The exchange is about 6.56 fr per 1 euro.

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