France is characterized by a mixed economic system, which is defined by Global Business Today is an economy where certain sectors are left to free markets and free market mechanism, while other sectors have significant state ownership and government planning. (Hill, 2008, p. 45) There are factors that show evidence that France applies a relatively open market; for example, applies a republic-type government where citizens are able to conduct their affairs for their own benefit and not for the “ruler”. France is also member of several global institutions such as the WTO and IMF. They also are ranked in the seventh place in the world according to imports and exports, with a total amount of $578.6 billion and $659.8 billion respectively. (The world factbook, 2014) On the other side of the coin, France went from being known as a “moderately free” country to a “mostly unfree” between 1997 and 2003, and the main reason is because the government is currently dominating major sectors of their economy, such as power, public transportation, and the defense industry. Another clear evidence of the government control is when we witness that the government spending covers more than half of the country’s GDP. (France, n.d.) Monetary unit’s name and value compared to the U.S. dollar. On 1999, France made a significant change where they change their currency name and value to what is currently applied by most of the countries members of the European Union (EU). As the change from the French franc to the euro occurred in 1999 while in that moment the euro only existed as “book money”, but later on banknotes and coins where introduced in to the cash flow of the country on 2002. The relation between the French euro and the U.S. (France and the euro, 2014) dollar for the past three year is the following: Euros per U.S. dollars: 0.79 (As of 10/02/2014) 0.7634 (2013) 0.7752 (2012) This comparison means that one U.S. do