With less than 60 days to the millennium, France has pronounced itself Y2K compliant. At a conference chaired by Global 2000, an organization formed by financial bodies to assess worldwide readiness, French Industry Secretary Christian Pierret reported that the Paris Stock Exchange, public sector and the French government were all prepared for the millennium. Global 2000 ratified PierretÆs comments, placing France among 96% of nations whose preparations, it said, were satisfactory.
Although the larger organizations in France may have done their homework, most of EuropeÆs smaller firms have adopted a policy of æwait and see,Æ a strategy dictated as much by costs as by ignorance of the possible effects of the date change. Despite these kinds of positive assurances from corporate France, other governments have expressed concern about the countryÆs SME and regional markets. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), for example, named France as one of the countries whose small businesses hadnÆt made the grade in Y2K in a report on its web site earlier this year (CI No 3,747).
