franc

In 1360, King Jean II of France was a prisoner of the English. He had been captured at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356 and held for a ransom of three million ecus. To raise the money, France minted a new gold coin. The coin showed the king on horseback with the Latin inscription Johannes Dei Gratia Francorum Rex (John, by the Grace of God, King of the Franks). The coin became known as the franc — both because Francorum appeared on it and because it was minted to make the king franc (free).

The original franc disappeared from circulation within decades. But the name returned in 1575 when Henry III introduced the silver franc. It came back again during the French Revolution, when the National Convention established the franc as the basic unit of French currency in 1795. The revolutionary franc was a decimal currency — 100 centimes to the franc — making it one of the first decimal currency systems in Europe. The revolutionaries wanted to break with the old regime's livre, and the franc, with its associations of freedom, was the right word.

The franc spread with French colonialism. The CFA franc (originally Colonies Françaises d'Afrique) was established in 1945 and still circulates in fourteen African countries. The Swiss franc, adopted in 1850, remains one of the world's major reserve currencies. The Belgian franc lasted until the euro replaced it in 2002. At its peak, some version of the franc was used on every inhabited continent.

France itself abandoned the franc for the euro on January 1, 2002. The last French franc notes could be exchanged at the Banque de France until February 2012. A currency born from a king's ransom, revived by a revolution, spread by colonialism, and ended by European integration. The word meant free. It was chained to six centuries of French history.