REGION B – EUROPE

THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC

(April 14-15, 1912 – North Atlantic Ocean)

The Bank of France

(Paris, France)

ROTHSCHILD OWNED & CONTROLLED CENTRAL BANK

The Official Story

THE BANK OF FRANCE
(Paris, France)

The Bank of France, headquartered in Paris, is the central bank of France. Founded in 1800, it began as a private institution for managing state debts and issuing notes. It is responsible for the accounts of the French government, managing the accounts and the facilitation of payments for the Treasury and some public companies. It also oversees the auctions of public securities on behalf of the European Central Bank.

Today, it is an independent institution, and it has been a member of the Eurosystem of central banks since 1999. This consists of the European Central Bank (ECB), and the national central banks (NCBs) of all European Union (EU) members. Its three main missions, as defined by its statuses, are to drive the French monetary strategy, ensure financial stability and provide services to households, small and medium businesses and the French state.

François Villeroy de Galhau has served as Governor of the Banque de France since 1 November 2015.

History

Central banking before the Bank of France

The Kingdom of France’s first experiment with a central bank was the Banque Générale (Banque Générale Privée or “General Private Bank”), set up by John Law at the behest of the Duke of Orléans after the death of Louis XIV. Law received the bank’s 20-year charter in May 1716 and its stock consisted of 1,200 shares valued at 5,000 livres apiece. It was meant to stimulate France’s stagnant economy and pay down its staggering national debt acquired from Louis XIV’s wars, including the War of the Spanish Succession. It was nationalized in December 1718 at Law’s request and formally renamed the Banque Royale a month later. It saw great initial success, increasing industry 60% in two years, but Law’s mercantilist policies saw him seek to establish large monopolies, leading to the Mississippi bubble. The bubble would ultimately burst in 1720, and on 27 November of that year, the Banque Royale officially closed.

The collapse of the Mississippi Company and the Banque Royale tarnished the word banque (“bank”) so much that France abandoned central banking for almost a century, possibly precipitating Louis XVI’s economic crisis and the French Revolution. Later successors like la Caisse d’escompte (from 1776 to 1793) and la Caisse d’escompte du commerce (from 1797 to 1803) used the word “caisse” instead, until Napoleon retook the term with la Banque de France (“Bank of France”) in 1800.

Key figures

In 2019, the main key figures of the Bank of France are as follows:

Number of full-time employees: 9,857

Regional branches: 95

Profit before tax : 6.5 billion euros

Dividend distributed to the French state : 6.1 billion euros

Gold reserves: 106.1 billion euros

Gold stock in France: 2,436 tons

Source: Wikipedia