CITY AND SUBURBAN
Let us raise our glasses to the ten-franc kir while we still have the chance
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
This is a proud moment for me. The ten-franc kir has come. All last week the rate of exchange was pushing fiercely upwards, on Monday it faltered but rallied, the French franc closed at 9.9995 to the pound, and on Tuesday morning, bingo! It hit 10.01. So my long campaign in these columns has paid off, just in time for the annual exodus to the Dordogne. My influ- ence on France's recent election — votez non, votez souvent, I urged, when the franc was at 9.45 — may well have been decisive. As that first cooling kir comes to your zinc- topped table, raise your glass to the column that made it affordable. It is too much to expect the Confederation of British Indus- try to join us. The pound will be getting too hot for it. Any minute now, in its oxy- moronic way, the CBI will call for an exchange rate that is stable but competi- tive. I would rather argue that a rate of exchange is a price in a market, that prices in markets move about, and that attempts to rig them are counterproductive and doomed to disappointment. France is caught ,up in an elaborate attempt to rig the currency markets of Europe, though its new government jibs at the price that has had to be paid and would have to be paid from now on. No wonder some of the shine has come off the French franc, and off the shiny single currency that it was meant to join, once the market was suitably rigged. The pound plays no part in these manoeu- vres, or not yet. That is one reason why it is popular. A solid record of sound monetary management would have been a better rea- son, but we cannot claim that, or not yet. This week's figures show that inflation is on its way up again. My advice to readers is to pour those ten-franc kirs down while our victory lasts.
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