SV Citizens with new franc
0.05


SCU New and old price lists
0.08


CU Woman hands new france to trader
0.14


CU Money into till
0.19


CU Man writes new price on board
0.26


SV Woman changes prices lists in shop window
0.30


CU Ditto
0.39


CU Trader puts new price on television set
0.45


GV Pan Cinema
0.49


GU Tickets at 1.30 instead of 130 frances
0.52


SCU Int. Boy exchanges old frances for new
1.06


CU Boy looks at new franc
1.20


CU Zoom into old franc
1.23


SCU Woman rewriting cheque
1.28


CU Ditto
1.36



Initials JRG/S/AW



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: France's new franc - worth 100 old francs - becomes legal tender an from January 1. Shops, theatres, paper kiosks show the new and old prices. Citizens carry the old and the new francs and the new five centime piece which becomes again a sou. Minting the new coinage for the entire needs of the nation will take some five years.

By law all prices and sums of money are expressed in new francs and centimes. French overseas departments will have the new currency by Spring.

The new currency needs no greater mental arithmetic than to place a decimal point - a comma in France - before the last two figures of a sum in old frances and calling these two figures centimes.

The introduction of the new currency is exported to pass off with no more than initial fuss over the counter in the first month. The new franc system ends the plethora of zeros in the nation's book- keeping and the housewives' pocket book, It also means an end to the rich man's label of Milliardaire - unless he really is a multi-millionaire.