Foreign News: Face of Disaster

The man who next gets the job of doctoring France's wounds will need more than a list of names and a gift for political guile, for the largest, most fertile land in Western Europe faces economic catastrophe. Causes:

¶ Creeping inflation, which is crippling French finances, pricing French goods out of the export market, impoverishing French workers. During the past year, bread prices have jumped 39%, coffee 17%, heat and light 15%. To millions of French families, meat, milk and tobacco have become rare luxuries.

¶ A staggering $600 million trade deficit with the dollar area; $400 million indebtedness to the...

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