PARIS -- Created in 1360 to help pay the ransom for King John II the Good following his capture by the Black Prince's English forces at the battle of Poitiers, the French franc is living its final days. From Jan. 1, it, along with the currencies of most other Western European nations, will be replaced by the euro.
A child of French President Francois Mitterrand and German chancellor Helmut Kohl, the euro was conceived when the Deutsche mark was the strongest currency in Europe. Once Germany was reunified -- making it the most populated and the richest country on the continent by far -- the fear was widespread that Germany's economic and financial weight would open the way to its political domination of Europe and that the Deutsche mark would become the continent's de facto premier currency. Germany did its best to appease this fear by agreeing to give up the mark and merge it with a single European currency.
There are two signs that this ambition has been met. First, some candidates for the French presidency are "souverainists" -- another way to say they are anti-European -- but only a few of them speak of restoring the franc. Second, while a majority of Britons still view the euro with skepticism, Prime Minister Tony Blair is increasingly determined to convince them to rally around it.