- According to the European Central Bank seizures of fake euro notes increased by 1300 per cent across the past two years, many of them made by forgers operating in former socialist countries, notably Bulgaria and Lithuania. Of the seized notes, 43.6 per cent were fifties, 28.2 per cent twenties and 21.5 per cent hundreds. To answer yet again a common question, if you find you’re stuck with a dud note you can’t change it for good money at the bank; they’ll just confiscate it.

- Nobody, of course, is going to bother forging those small euro coins — the one and two euro denominations (“piècettes” , in French). A lot of people, like me, find them a nuisance and there’s talk of doing away with them. The Finns have already done so — with all prices being rounded up or down to the nearest five — and the Belgians and Dutch seem likely to follow. Arguments in favour are that these coins are a nuisance both to consumers and retailers and cost the state a lot to produce. The consumer body UFC-Que choisir? is wary of such a change, warning that it would lead to price hikes.

- Back in June (2004) Nicolas Sarkozy asked the big retailers to cut their margins by an average of 2 per cent this autumn. With what result? Reader Jane Risdon wrote to say that certain products at her local Carrefour underwent quite a hefty reductions — she mentions the Danone plain yoghurt she eats “mountains of”, among other things. In fact, Carrefour claims to have made cuts on 5000 items! The supermarket companies have made a lot of noise about their reductions but have also offered explanations for their limited scope: they don’t want to put unfair pressure on their suppliers to reduce wholesale prices and the law forbids them to sell at a loss. A recent price audit by the consumer protection body DGCCRF covering 300 products found an average reduction of 1.5 per cent. When Sarkozy’s plan was announced one cynic in the trade told us, “They’ll make sure they don’t lose out by playing tricks with the packaging. You’ll pay less and get less.”

- Funny he should say that. That’s exactly what some of the tobacco companies have been doing. The other day maybe you paid 4.50 euros for a packet of Pall Mall, tomorrow the guy in the shop asks for only 4.25 euros. But there’s a difference. This time you only get nineteen cigarettes instead of twenty. But, so the thinking goes, this lessens the impact of recent price hikes.

Of course, maybe you slip over the frontier into Italy to pick up a supply of cheap smokes, as the Brits would say. Bad news, that, for buralistes — the guys who have tobacco stores — and in some other frontier areas, as in France’s north-east, they’re hitting back … by charging 60 cents for an ordinary 50 cent stamp. A scam? Well, La Poste told complainants that they have no power to impose a maximum price for stamps on the buralistes who, incidentally, get a 3 per cent official commission on stamp sales. In February 2005, by the way, the official cost of a basic stamp is likely to rise to 55 cents.

- Our feature a while back on homeopathic medicine aroused quite a lot of interest. Some “Anglo-Saxons”, like Bill Grogan, think it’s just one big fraud; Pauline Gurrey, though, tells us she has had “amazing results” from homeopathic remedies and she was disgusted when France’s Academy of Medicine declared recently that such treatments were “obsolete” and “preposterous” and shouldn’t be reimbursed by Social Security. In fact, at the beginning of this year reimbursement of the cost of homeopathic products was cut from 65 to 35 per cent. After the outburst from the Academy, Health Minister Douste-Blazy (an MD) gave an assurance that this last rate would remain unchanged. “He’s thinking of the votes,” sneered one académicien. Well, maybe — ten million people in France are adepts of homeopathy.

- As a regular train traveller I keep an eye on SNCF bargains. For example, for five weekends starting November 12, 2004 they’re offering cheap rates on 200 routes across France: second class return fares are 39 euros Corail, 49 euros TGV and 69 euros Corail (sleeper). Bookings must be made online not earlier than one week before the Friday of departure and the night of Saturday to Sunday must be spent away. For further information call the SNCF information line on 08 92 35 35 35.

- Are prices rising due to the euro? Your bar-counter economists will tell you so, certainly. In a recent issue Soixante Million de Consommateurs looked at the movement of prices over the past two years. Yes, for the ordinary Jo they’ve been on the rise — by 3.9 per cent; however, it’s hard to assign precise weighting to the euro factor, though it’s played a significant role. Biggest hikes have been in café and restaurant prices and in garage costs along with what you’ve paid for toiletries, fruit, bread and insurance.

From Reporter 106 - Dec 2004

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