Euro is falling? <i>C’est la vie</i>

Reporting from Paris — 

At the improbable celebration of the European currency Saturday at the French Mint museum in Paris, one image stood out: an explosion of falling golden euros, festively projected on the facade of the building.

Perhaps not the best image as the euro plunges to record lows, and concerns spread of inherent flaws in Europe’s shared currency.

But at the French Mint, the euro was the pre-scheduled star of this year’s trendy after-hours museum night, a Europe-wide event during which museums stay open until early the next day.

Children played at “virtually” minting euro coins, with each stamp setting off a sparkling display of lights that hung like starry lanterns in the museum’s courtyard. Short lessons about the euro’s beginnings were taught to curious onlookers.

No matter that the Eurozone is facing what some are describing as an existential crisis, with economists predicting the euro’s continued depreciation relative to the dollar. On Friday, it fell below $1.24, a far cry from its heady days over $1.50.

Jean-Claude Trichet, the European Central Bank president, said these were “dramatic times” for the currency and “the most difficult situation since the Second World War, perhaps even since the First World War,” in an interview in a coming issue of the German newspaper Der Spiegel that the bank made public Saturday.

Neither were the Parisian festivities visibly damped by reports, later denied, that President Nicolas Sarkozy early this month threatened to pull France out of the Eurozone if Germany refused to aid debt-ridden Greece and other countries.

Never mind. At the French Mint, Europe’s existential crisis didn’t seem to bother some visitors.

“People are just panicking,” said Carmen, 42, a Spanish woman living in Paris who would give only her first name as she waited in line with her 9-year-old to get a commemorative stamped coin. “When the euro is too high, we say it’s bad for exporting, and when the euro is down, we say it’s a catastrophe.”

Jean-Francois Mollet, 62, was one of the few visitors at the museum who was concerned. He said he “didn’t rule out” the possibility of the euro disappearing one day.

“You have all these different problems with Greece, and then Spain and Portugal not controlling their debt,” he said. “At first the EU was a good idea when there were only nine members, but it grew too fast.”

Catherine Metz, 51, who’s in charge of cultural affairs at the museum, helped organize what she hoped would be a spectacular fete in honor of the euro.

A historian who has worked at the museum for 18 years, Metz remembers the “thrill” of changing from the franc to the euro in 2002.

“It was exalting, because it was an opening to the whole world. ... We almost didn’t need to move,” she said. “All of a sudden, all the nationalities became very close; that’s what was so wonderful.”

But she was less starry-eyed about the fate of the currency.

If the euro disappeared one day, “that’s just history,” Metz said. “It will follow its own course. Maybe things will go well, and maybe it will disappear for whatever reason.... That’s life.”

Lauter is a special correspondent.