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The French love affair with credit cards is causing problems for the nation’s
shopkeepers. More than a million credit and debit cards issued this month have
expiry dates that fall after 2000. Some retailers are finding that their
electronic card payment machines will not accept the post-millennium plastic.
The Groupement des Cartes Bancaires, which runs the French electronic payment
system, says that at least 24 000 out of the 600 000 card machines in the
country cannot cope.