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Inflation Calculator: France

See what an amount from any past year is worth today in 15 countries, or deflate today's money back in time, using each country's own official price index.

Reviewed by CentExactRates effective 1 sourceCalculated in your browser. Shared links include inputs.
Country

Indice des prix a la consommation, 2010=100, 1951 to 2025.

Amount and years
€

Annual averages, 1951 to 2025. Enter a later "from" year to deflate.

France: the new franc of 1960 sits inside this series

France changed the value of its currency unit in the middle of the period this page covers, and it catches people out far more often than the euro does. An ordonnance of 27 December 1958 created a new franc worth 100 old francs, effective 1 January 1960. The euro followed on 1 January 2002 at 6.55957 francs.

The index chains through both, because an index tracks the price level rather than the unit it is quoted in. A price your family remembers does not. Anything recalled from before 1960 is in old francs and needs both divisions.

Worked exampleWorked example: a 1955 price

Say a receipt from 1955 reads 15,000 francs. Those are old francs. Divide by

100 for the 1960 reform to get 150 new francs, then by 6.55957 for the euro: about EUR 22.87.

Enter 22.87 as the 1955 amount. Skip the 1960 step and the result is a hundred times too large, which is the commonest mistake made with French figures.

Four decades of this series are retail prices, not the IPC

Worth knowing before you lean on an old French conversion: the segment from December 1950 to December 1989 is a retail price index, not INSEE's consumer price index. Only from 1990 does the series follow the IPC proper.

INSEE's own consumer index began in 1949 covering worker and employee households in Paris and its suburbs; collection outside the capital started in 1951. So an early French figure reflects a narrow, largely Parisian basket, and the further back you go the less it represents what the country as a whole was paying.

Why French inflation stayed low in 2022

France peaked at 6.3% in February 2023, conspicuously below its neighbours, and INSEE has quantified the reason rather than leaving it to argument. Between mid-2021 and mid-2022 energy contributed 3.1 points of the 5.3 points of inflation; without the bouclier tarifaire it would have contributed 6.2. Regulated gas rose 37.6% instead of 105.0%, electricity 4.7% instead of 36.9%.

A French conversion spanning 2022 therefore reflects a capped energy price, not a market one. For the oil shocks the same series gives 1958 at 15.0%, 1974 at 13.7% and 1980 at 13.5%.

For how the calculation works, the formula behind it and what it leaves out, see the full guide. For help interpreting a result or comparing it with a quote or statement, read the questions and answers.

Data sources

Indice des prix a la consommation, annual averages (2010 = 100)INSEEWithin its effective period

Every document each dataset was read from, its notes and how the figures were checked are listed in the guide's data sources.

This calculator in other countries

Each country has its own rates, thresholds and rules, and its own page that runs the calculator on them and cites the official sources they came from.

CentExactCalculator publisher

CentExact publishes the calculation method, worked examples and available data sources. Automated checks cover reference calculations; they do not certify a result for your circumstances or imply approval by a lender or tax authority.

How we build and test our calculators

Figures are estimates derived from published rates and rules, current at the review date shown at the top of this page and taken from the sources listed under Data sources on this page. Rates, fees and thresholds change; always confirm current values with the official source before relying on a result.