CFP franc
The CFP franc (called the franc in everyday use) is the currency used in the French overseas collectivities (collectivités d’outre-mer, or COM) of French Polynesia, New Caledonia and Wallis and Futuna. The initials CFP originally stood for Colonies Françaises du Pacifique (“French colonies of the Pacific”). This was later changed to Communauté Financière du Pacifique (“Pacific Financial Community”) and then to the present term, Change Franc Pacifique (“Pacific Franc Exchange”). The ISO 4217 currency code is XPF.
History
1945–1949
The CFP franc was created in December 1945, together with the CFA franc, used in Africa. The reason for the creation of these francs was the weakness of the French franc immediately after the Second World War. When France ratified the Bretton Woods Agreement in December 1945, the French franc was devalued in order to set a fixed exchange rate with the US dollar. New currencies were created in the French colonies to spare them the strong devaluation of December 1945. René Pleven, the French minister of finance, was quoted saying: “In a show of her generosity and selflessness, metropolitan France, wishing not to impose on her far-away daughters the consequences of her own poverty, is setting different exchange rates for their currency.” The CFA franc and the other colonial currencies were set at a fixed exchange rate with the French franc. However, the CFP franc was set at a fixed exchange rate with the US dollar, which played a major role in the economy of the French Pacific territories on account of World War II. That situation ended in September 1949 when the CFP franc was given a fixed exchange rate with the French franc.
Franc
The franc (₣) is the name of several currency units. The French franc was the former currency of France until the euro was adopted in 1999 (by law, 2002 de facto). The Swiss franc is a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription francorum rex (Style of the French sovereign: King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th century, or from the French franc, meaning "free" (and "frank").
The countries that use francs include Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and most of Francophone Africa. Before the introduction of the euro, francs were also used in France, Belgium and Luxembourg, while Andorra and Monaco accepted the French franc as legal tender (Monegasque franc). The franc was also used within the French Empire's colonies, including Algeria and Cambodia. The franc is sometimes italianised or hispanicised as the franco, for instance in Luccan franco.
One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The French franc symbol was an F with a line through it (₣) or, more frequently, only an F. For practical reasons, the banks and the financial markets used the abbreviation FF for the French franc in order to distinguish it from the Belgian franc (FB), the Luxembourgish franc (FL or FLux) etcetera. (In the Luxembourgish language, the word for franc is Frang, plural form Frangen.)
French franc
The franc (/fræŋk/; French: [fʁɑ̃]; sign: F or Fr), also commonly distinguished as the French franc (FF), was a currency of France. Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money. It was reintroduced (in decimal form) in 1795. It was revalued in 1960, with each new franc (NF) being worth 100 old francs. The NF designation was continued for a few years before the currency returned to being simply the franc; the French continued to reference and value items in terms of the old franc (equivalent to the new centime) until the introduction of the euro in 1999 (for accounting purposes) and 2002 (for coins and banknotes). The French franc was a commonly held international reserve currency in the 19th and 20th centuries.
History
Before the French Revolution
The first franc was a gold coin introduced in 1360 to pay the Ransom of King John II of France. This coin secured the king's freedom and showed him on a richly decorated horse earning it the name franc à cheval (meaning "free on horse" in French). The obverse legend, like other French coins, gives the king’s title as Francorum Rex ("King of the Franks" in Latin) and provides another reason to call the coin a franc. Its value was set as one livre tournois (a money of account). John’s son, Charles V, continued this type. It was copied exactly at Brabant and Cambrai and, with the arms on the horse cloth changed, at Flanders. Conquests led by Joan of Arc allowed Charles VII to return to sound coinage and he revived the franc à cheval. John II, however, was not able to strike enough francs to pay his ransom and he voluntarily returned to English captivity.
CFP-10
CFP-10 also known as ESAT-6-like protein esxB or secreted antigenic protein MTSA-10 or 10 kDa culture filtrate antigen CFP-10 is a protein that is encoded by the esxB gene.
CFP-10 is a 10 kDa secreted antigen from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It forms a 1:1 heterodimeric complex with ESAT-6. Both genes are expressed from the RD1 region of the bacterial genome and play a key role in the virulence of the infection.
Function
10-kDa culture filtrate protein (CFP-10) is an antigen that contributes to the virulence Mycobacterium tuberculosis. CFP-10 forms a tight 1:1 heterodimeric complex with 6kDaA early secreted antigen target (ESAT-6). In the mycobacterial cell, these two proteins are interdependent on each other for stability. The ESAT-6/CFP-10 complex is secreted by the ESX-1 secretion system, also known as the RD1 region. Mycobacterium tuberculosis uses this ESX-1 secretion system to deliver virulence factors into host macrophage and monocyte white blood cells during infection. In Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the core components of the whole ESX-1 secretion system include Rv3877, and two AAA ATPases, including Rv3870 and Rv3871, a cytosolic protein. The ESAT-6/CFP-10 heterodimer complex is targeted for secretion by a C-terminal signal sequence on CFP-10 that is recognized by the cytosolic Rv3871 protein. Rv3871 then interacts with the CFP-10 C-terminal, and escorts the ESAT-6/CFP-10 complex to Rv3870 and Rv3877, a multi-transmembrane protein which makes up the pore that spans the cytosolic membrane of the virulent host cell. Once ESAT-6/CFP-10 is next to the membrane of the virulent host cell, the CFP-10 C-terminal attaches and binds itself to the cells surface. The ESAT-6/CFP-10 complex’s secretion and attachment to the virulent host cell shows its contribution to the pathogenicity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. [4].
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