France helps found the European Economic Community and adopts the euro
A founding member of European integration eventually gives up the franc
Quick facts
- Location
- Rome (1957 treaty); across the eurozone (2002)
- Founding members
- France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg
- Euro cash introduced
- 1 January 2002
What happened
France was one of six founding members, alongside Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, that signed the Treaties of Rome on 25 March 1957, establishing the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community as the foundation of what would become the European Union. Decades later, as part of the deeper monetary integration begun under the Maastricht framework, the euro currency replaced the French franc, and on 1 January 2002 euro banknotes and coins entered circulation across France and eleven other participating countries in the largest monetary changeover in history. The franc remained usable alongside the euro for a short transition period before the euro became France's sole legal tender that March.
Why it matters
France's founding role in European integration and its later adoption of a shared currency tied its economy and sovereignty more closely to its European neighbors than at any point since the medieval Carolingian empire briefly united much of the same territory, marking a deliberate turn away from the nationalist conflicts that had driven two world wars.
How we know
The Treaties of Rome survive in their original signed text, and the European Central Bank's own published changeover reports document the euro's introduction and the scale of the 2002 currency exchange in detail.
Sources
- In Custodia Legis, Library of Congress. 60-Year Anniversary of the Rome Treaties · Primary sourceblogs.loc.gov · The domain "blogs.loc.gov" is on our Primary source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- European Central Bank. Initial changeover (2002) · Primary source (author-declared)ecb.europa.eu · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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