French Rushing to Cash in Their Francs While They Still Can

Commentators and some politicians were openly speculating on how long Europe's single currency could survive in the face of the Greek debt crisis on Monday, but on the same day, the French were lining up in their hundreds to cash in their last French francs for euros. Clutching notes big and small, some in quantities worth several thousand euros, they waited patiently at the doors of the French central bank to exchange old money for new.

Although the franc ceased being legal tender for everyday transactions in France several years ago, it is still possible to exchange them at the Bank of France for shiny new euros. The final deadline for this is Friday, February 17. Each owner of the note has his story to tell. "I discovered this in an old pair of trousers, and this is the last time to have this exchanged into euros. It's a waste of time because there is only one place in Paris to get this done, so I hope that I will have enough time to exchange into euros," said Manuel a Parisian. Others had kept their notes as souvenirs, but decided that in the end they would prefer hard cash to a memory.

"I put them aside in 2000 at the time we turned to euros, and I had in mind to keep them. but now I tell myself, what 's the goal, it's not worth it. I will make nice color xerox copies and that will be good," said Christian, a Parisian. Francs can only be exchanged at one branch of the Banque de France, which has 64 branches countrywide and among the 150 people queuing on Monday, some were asked to come back the next day.

For those who preferred not to queue at the Banque de France, a hotel and casino group offered up an opportunity until this Sunday, to pay in francs Bruno Cagnon, the chief executive officer of the Lucien Barriere group of hotels, says he has a lot of happy patrons. "I am not sure whether the clients spend more money because of this but I am sure that they are very pleased with this because they can get rid of their franc notes they have, knowing on top of that that they have only until February 17th to do it, so they like it a lot," he said.

Thirty-four of the group's casinos had set up an operation to allow people to pay in francs and it generated 100,000 French francs (15,000 euros) at the end of Sunday (February 12).