Franc
name of several currency units
The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription francorum rex (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th century, or from the French franc, meaning "frank".
The countries that use francs today include Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and most of Francophone Africa. The Swiss franc is a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions.
Before the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999, francs were also used in France, Belgium and Luxembourg, while Andorra and Monaco accepted the French franc as legal tender (Monégasque franc). The franc was also used in former French colonies including Algeria and Cambodia. The franc is sometimes Italianised or Hispanicised as the franco, for instance in Luccan franco.
Origins
The franc was originally a French gold coin of 3.87 g minted in 1360 on the occasion of the release of King John II ("the Good"), held by the English since his capture at the Battle of Poitiers four years earlier. It was equivalent to one livre tournois (Tours pound).
“Franc” enters the record as name of several currency units. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Franc, name and several can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Franc” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Franc, name and several provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1403377. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1999 and 1360.
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This entry incorporates text from “Franc” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.