KEY POINTS:
Catherine, a greengrocer in a small Norman town, has all her prices marked in euros and nothing but euros.
Ten years after the creation of a single European currency, large French shops and most restaurants and cafes still defy Brussels and list their prices in two currencies.
Does the stand that Catherine has taken in her small shop on the market square of Thury Harcourt mean she is a fan of the euro, 10 years old yesterday?
"No, not all. The euro has been a calamity for ordinary people. Inflation has been higher, whatever the politicians say. The gap between rich and poor has grown."
Marie-Elisabeth, a nearby shopkeeper, is a little more positive. "Most customers think only in euros now. It is just the very old ones who like everything to be converted into francs. And yet there is no real affection for the euro yet, not like we had for the franc. The franc was like our mum. The euro is like our stepmother."
Ten years into the greatest monetary gamble ever, the euro is riding high. The 11 founding members of Euroland yesterday increased their rank to 16, with the arrival of Slovakia. The Euroland countries will issue 84 million commemorative 2 coins, the first to carry no national symbols.
The single currency, once so derided by Eurosceptics, is heading for parity with sterling - a 30 per cent increase in less than two years. The value of all euro notes in circulation now exceeds those of dollar bills.
A number of euro-resistant countries - Sweden, Denmark, even Iceland, which is not an EU member - are said to be looking enviously at the storm shelter apparently offered by the euro during the global recession.
But is the euro riding for a fall? It is yet to capture the hearts of many; there is an almost universal conviction that the currency has unleashed a boom in "real" inflation in the past seven years, even if the official figures insist otherwise. Opinion polls suggest most people in all Euroland countries still support the euro, but the majority is wafer-thin in countries such as France and Italy.
Only in Germany has the currency gained in popularity - hardly surprising, say French politicians and commentators. They say the European Central Bank has become a kind of Greater Bundesbank, managing a Greater Deutschmark - fine for the German economy; not so good for the rest.
Critics say the bank has inherited the genetic fixation of the Bundesbank of putting inflation above other factors.
While the world economy was booming (however artificially) and the Euroland economy humming along gently, these tensions did not matter much.
It now faces its greatest test as the economic conditions and policies of the 16 Euroland countries diverge in the face of what may be the worst global recession for 70 years.
- INDEPENDENT
