The Piastres affair, also known as Piastres scandal or Piastres trade (French: ''l'affaire des piastres'', ''le scandale des piastres'', or ''le trafic de piastres''), was a financial-political scandal of the

French Fourth Republic The French Fourth Republic (french: Quatrième république française) was the Republicanism, republican government of France from 27 October 1946 to 4 October 1958, governed by the fourth republican constitution. It was in many ways a revival of ...

during the

First Indochina War The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh (Democratic Republic of Vi ...

from 1950 to 1953. The basis for the affair was the pegging in 1945 of the

French Indochinese piastre The piastre de commerce was the currency of French Indochina between 1885 and 1952. It was subdivided into 100 ''cents'', each of 2~6 '' sapèques''. The name ''piastre'' (), from Spanish pieces of eight (pesos), dates to the 16th century and h ...

to the

French franc The franc (, ; sign: F or Fr), also commonly distinguished as the (FF), was a currency of France. Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money. It w ...

at a rate of seventeen to one, increased from the previous rate of ten to one to avoid devaluation of the franc. However the real value of the piastre in Indochina remained around 10 francs or less; when piastres were transferred to France through the Foreign Exchange Office (''Office indochinois des changes'', or OIC) the Treasury (therefore the French taxpayer) paid out the established seventeen francs per piastre, amounting to an effective subsidy of around 8.50 francs according to Jacques Despuech, author of the first book on the case in 1953 and journalist for '' The French Nation''. Despite controls given to the OIC in 1948, the situation resulted in widespread money-laundering related to organized crime and political corruption. The affair was brought to light in 1950 but aroused little interest among parliamentarians until 1952–3, when it was realized that the

Viet Minh The Việt Minh (; abbreviated from , chữ Nôm and Hán tự: ; french: Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam, ) was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Fro ...

was also benefiting. In July, 1954 the Geneva Accords were signed, ending French Indochina.

References

* Lucien Bodard
''The Indochina War: The Stagnation, the Humiliation, the Adventure'' (''La guerre d'Indochine. L'enlisement, l'humiliation, l'aventure)''
Grasset, 1500 p., Paris, 1997. * Yves Gras, ''History of the Indochina War'' ''(Hirtoire de la guerre d'lndorhine)'', Plon, Paris, 1979. *

Paul Mus Paul Mus (1902–1969) was a French writer and scholar. His studies focused on Viet Nam and other South-East Asian cultures. He was born in Bourges to an academic family, and grew up in northern Viet Nam (Tonkin). In 1907 his father opened the Col ...

''Vietnam:'' ''Sociology of a War (Viêt-Nam, sociologie d'une guerre)''
Seuil, Paris, 1952. *

Jules Roy Jules Roy (22 October 1907 – 15 June 2000) was a French writer. "Prolific and polemical" Roy, born an Algerian pied noir and sent to a Roman Catholic seminary, used his experiences in the French colony and during his service in the Royal Air For ...

,
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu
', Julliard, 1963; Albin Michel, 1989. * Despuech Jacques, ''The traffic of the Piastres'', Two banks, 1953. * ''Marianne'', number of July 8, 2002. Military history of France Political scandals in France French Fourth Republic 1950 in France First Indochina War {{France-stub

See also

References