Paul Workman's Paris
| Date | 01 March 1999 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209905400111 |
| Published date | 01 March 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Comment |
Paul
Workman's
Paris
FOR
ALL
THE
TALK
OF
AN
ECONOMIC
'BIG
BANG,'
the
old
world
pulled
off
its
historic
switch
to
a
new
currency with
little
pain
or
mass
confu-
sion;
then
again
European
leaders
deliberately spread
the
transition
over three
years
to
reduce
frustration and
anxiety
among
their
290
mil-
lion
citizens.
Probably
a
good
thing,
certainly
in
France
where
politi-
cians
are
always
acutely
sensitive
to
their
nation's
revolutionary history.
For now,
the
euro
is
more
like
virtual
money;
you
can
write
a
cheque
or
use
your
credit
card
in
euros,
but
coins
and
banknotes won't
be
in
full
circulation
until
January, 2002.
In
other
words
you
can
spend
it,
but
you can't
fold
it;
you
can
use
it,
but
you
can't
lose
it.
Brilliant.
Officially the
euro
is
now
worth 6.55957
French francs,
and
for
the
next
two
years
stores
and
banks
will
accept
both,
which means
double-
function
cash
registers
and
double-function
bank
machines
and dou-
bly
perplexed
consumers.
It's
all
a
bit
much
for
the
older
generation,
which
has
never fully
come
to
terms
with
the
postwar
conversion
from
old
francs
to
new
and
now
faces
the
burden
of
yet
another
exchange
rate,
to
the
fifth
decimal
point
no
less.
To
help
overcome
the
trauma,
banks
and
businesses
have
been
generously
handing
out
millions
of
pocket-size
calculettes,
hoping
a
largely
apathetic
public
will at
least
start
thinking
in
euros,
if
not
spending
them.
The
new
euro
bills,
when
they
do
finally
appear,
will
feature
pretty
pictures
of
bridges,
about
the
only
image
politically
banal
enough
to
be
acceptable
to
all
eleven
coun-
tries. A
lot
of
critics
wonder
how
the
same
eleven,
rich
and
poor,
left
and
right,
weak
and
strong,
will
ever
be satisfied
with
a
single,
one-for-
Paris
correspondent
for
CBC
Television
News
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter
1998-9
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