Paris has to melt down millions of prematurely minted coins

2024-01-12 17:50:33

The French mint “La Monnaie de Paris” will have to melt down 27 million hastily produced 10, 20 and 50 cent coins. The coins, which feature a new French design, were due to go into circulation from January this year, the newspaper “Les Échos” reported on Friday, citing information from the mint.

The French authorities had already given the green light for the design, but the necessary approval from the EU Commission was still pending. In order to be able to present the new coins during a visit by Finance and Economics Minister Bruno Le Maire to the mint at the beginning of December, production was started early.

Four days following production of the coins began, the design was finally rejected by Brussels. The objection was that the stars of the EU were not visible clearly enough on the page depicting Europe.

The minister then canceled his visit to the state mint, which quickly submitted a new draft to the EU. This was approved at the end of December, so the production of the proper coins is still in progress, according to people close to the mint. The unsuitable coins should now be recycled – the financial damage might add up to 700,000 to 1.2 million euros.

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