PARIS, Dec 4: Almost a year after the Euro was successfully introduced as the common currency of most of the 15 European Union countries, and just as France had started complaining about an oversupply of Euro coins, French banks are now bewailing the lack of paper euros, notably the 500-euro note, worth approximately $500.

Apparently, French households are stocking away the bills, supposedly for rainier days, just as in the past they would do so with the old French 500 franc notes, worth considerably less at $75. The next largest denomination, the 200-euro note ($200), is also being socked away, as only 38 per cent of the notes that were issued this year have in fact gone into circulation.

According to the Banque de France, in a report just made public, the phenomenon is quintessentially French, as 48 per cent larger-denomination euro banknotes are circulating in the other Euro Zone countries.

A spokesman for the Banque de France, the public organization that regulates the circulation of money in France, says that the very French citizens who were forced to empty their coffers, and other hiding places, of the larger-denomination franc-denomination banknotes earlier this year to exchange them for euro notes, have simply turned around and replaced the franc notes with euros.

Another intriguing sign of the French proclivity at placing their money under their mattresses, or in safe-deposit boxes, is that a good percentage of the larger-denomination notes in circulation in France are printed in the other euro-zone countries, which means that the 200-euro and 500-euro notes one comes across in France were put there most likely by visitors from other countries.