The long reign from 1848 to 1870 of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later (in 1852) Emperor Napoleon III of France, was at its peak characterised by economic dynamism and industrial progress. The great Paris Exhibitions of 1855 and 1867 were, together with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1867, (again as a result of French enterprise and innovation), a triumph of French achievement.

In the 1860s France led, because of its remarkable prosperity, central Europe to look with admiration at its banking and financial structures. Political leaders from neighbouring states eagerly aspired to adopt these systems for their own countries.

For example, in 1862, the New Kingdom of Italy tried to model its monetary system on the proposals of French experts based on similar institutions in France.

But when the monetary difficulties of some French neighbour states led them in 1885 to return to France for guidance its leaders failed to make the most of that opportunity.

Napoleon himself had long hoped to give European nations a lead in monetary policy by establishing uniform currencies between consenting states that would make their currencies interchangeable. This dream seemed at last achievable when on December 23, 1865 a convention was signed between France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland that created the Latin Monetary Union. However, despite the general desire of the delegates to go for a gold standard, the influence of the Bank of France and the narrow interests of some of the most influential French bankers (led mostly by Baron James de Rotschild) vehemently opposed the Emperor’s policies and he was obliged to concede to keep both gold and silver standards as legal tenders.

This was undoubtedly one of the reasons which prevented the new Monetary Union from becoming the nucleus of a much wider organisation and from making any further recruits except one in 1868, namely Greece, described by a prominent French diplomat of the time as “economically unsound, convulsed by political struggles, and financially rotten.’

Ultimately, the Union failed because some member states started printing paper money at will thereby making the Union’s currency unreliable on the markets, but Greece proved to be the weakest link. According to a BBC programme on the subject, Greece’s “chronically weak economy meant successive Greek governments responded by decreasing the amount of gold in coins thereby debasing their currency in relation to those of other nations in the Union in violation of the original agreement”.

Isn’t the current crisis in the European Union on the euro therefore repeat history? The same symptoms which have of late brought the currencies of Europe to the brink of disaster are identifiable also in the crises characterising the Latin Monetary Union of almost 150 years ago. Namely, weak national economies, arrogant and narrow-minded bankers and financiers, corrupt politicians, feeble and unsure guidance by national leaders and those at the centre of a European Union, cooking of national accounts and statistics, deceptive manoeuvres, unstable governments, and general air of uncertainty over a long period.

It seems that man never learns, despite history being such a great teacher.