Currency & Purchasing-Power Converter
Enter an amount in French francs, pick a year, and see both the nominal conversion (using the fixed 6.55957 FRF/EUR rate) and the real value (adjusted for inflation to today). For pre-1960 years you can choose ancien francs or nouveaux francs.
Key Figures
Conversion Across Currencies
Big number = direct conversion at the fixed Franc→Euro rate, then today's exchange rate. Bottom row = same francs after adjusting for purchasing-power loss since the chosen year.
Inflation Calculator
Convert any amount between any two years (francs or euros, 1950–2026). The franc was replaced as legal tender on 17 February 2002, but consumer prices kept moving — and 1950s francs are not the same as 1990s francs even nominally, because of the 1960 currency reform.
Equivalent Value
Trajectory of value over time
Charts & Trends
Visual look at France's inflation history through the Franc era and beyond. Sources: INSEE consumer-price indices, OECD/World Bank historical CPI series.
📉 Purchasing Power of 100 F over time
📊 Annual Inflation Rate (1951–2026)
📈 Cumulative Price Index (1950 = 100)
💵 Franc against the US Dollar (approximate)
Compare Two Years Side-by-Side
See how the same nominal amount of francs stacked up between any two moments in history. Use nouveaux francs throughout (so 100 F here = 10,000 anciens F before 1960).
Inflation-adjusted equivalent in today's Euros
Path between the two years
What Could You Buy with Your Francs?
An intuitive way to grasp the real value of historical francs — based on average French retail prices anchored to the year 2000 (just before the euro changeover) and back-calculated using INSEE/OECD consumer-price coefficients.
📋 In today's money
€127.55
That's the inflation-adjusted equivalent of your input.
Approximate purchases
Quantities of typical French goods at average prices for the selected year
Prices are illustrative averages. Actual prices varied substantially by region (Paris vs province), shop type, and exact year. The methodology anchors typical year-2000 retail prices and back-calculates using INSEE consumer-price coefficients.
About the French Franc
📜 A 641-Year Story
The French Franc was created in 1360, when King Jean II "le Bon" was ransomed from English captivity. The new gold coin, the franc à cheval, depicted the king on horseback — and gave its name to a currency that would survive, in different forms, for more than six centuries. After the Revolution, the Franc germinal of 1803 set the modern foundation: 5 grams of silver, decimal-based, divided into 100 centimes. It was the anchor currency of the Latin Monetary Union (1865), at par with the Belgian, Swiss, and Italian currencies.
Two world wars and chronic post-war inflation reduced the Franc's purchasing power so much that, on 1 January 1960, de Gaulle's government enacted a redenomination: 100 anciens francs became 1 nouveau franc. This is why a 1955 paycheck of "30,000 francs" and a 1995 baguette at "3.80 francs" are not numerically comparable — they live in different monetary universes. The Franc finally yielded to the Euro on 17 February 2002, and the Banque de France ended franc-banknote redemption on 17 February 2012.
Quick Facts
💵 Final Series Banknotes (1992–2002)
The last banknote series, designed by Roger Pfund, depicted scientists, artists, and explorers. Each was equipped with then-new security features (windowed thread, holograms). From smallest to largest, with their nominal Euro equivalents:
Composer (1862–1918). Multicolour, ~€3.05.
Aviator and author of Le Petit Prince. Blue, ~€7.62.
Post-impressionist painter. Orange, ~€15.24.
Engineer of the Tower. Red-brown, ~€30.49.
Nobel-laureate physicists. Green, ~€76.22.
Earlier post-war series included Voltaire (1963), Pascal (1969), Berlioz (1972), Delacroix (1980), and Quentin de La Tour (1980) — and before that, the famous Anciens-franc notes of the 1940s–50s with denominations up to 10,000 AF.
🪙 Final Series Coins
Standard circulation coins in the 1990s ranged from 5 centimes to 20 F. The 1, 2 and 5-F coins were nickel; the larger 10 F (1988) and bimetallic 20 F (1992) were the heavy-duty everyday change. Centime coins below 5 had been demonetised long before. France's most distinctive piece was the silver 50 F (1974–80) commemorating Hercules — silver content quickly made it worth more melted than spent, so it disappeared from circulation almost immediately.
📅 Key Events
🔢 Methodology
Fixed conversion: 6.55957 F = €1.00 (set 31 December 1998 by EU Council Regulation No. 2866/98).
Ancien francs: handled exactly: 100 AF = 1 NF (reform of 1 January 1960). The "Franc Type" toggle in the Converter and the dropdown in the Inflation Calculator both let you input either; everything is normalised to nouveaux francs internally.
Inflation adjustment: uses INSEE/OECD French consumer-price-index coefficients. The series for 1956–2026 comes from the OECD/World Bank IPC France; 1950–1955 is back-extended using historical INSEE annual rates. The same methodology underlies the official "convertisseur franc-euro" published by INSEE.
Modern FX rates: mid-market reference rates near the page's last update, sourced from ECB / Yahoo Finance. They are illustrative — banks and money-changers will quote a markup.
Historical prices in "What Could You Buy?": typical French retail prices around the year 2000 (baguette ~4.30 F, café au comptoir ~6 F, métro ticket ~8 F, etc.) deflated to earlier years using the same INSEE/OECD series. Real prices varied widely between Paris and the provinces, between corner shops and supermarkets.