Front Populaire Yields to Pressure on the Franc

Friday 25^th September 1936

Léon Blum’s Front Populaire government in France gave up the ghost of trying to protect the value of the Franc, which had been under pressure from the the time of the left's huge win the elections. In agreement with Britain and the US the Franc was to be devalued. The two anglophone powers agreed to make resources available to dampen any “disturbance of the exchanges” that might result. The scale of the financial crisis can be judged from the fact that the Bourse was closed, supposedly for a few days only.

The Swiss and Dutch governments, whose economies, were closely linked to their neighbour’s followed suit almost immediately. No figure was set for the size of the devaluation; in practice the open market would set the new value of the franc.