Carrefour, the market-leading French hypermarket group, plans to double the number of customer-support staff that work - sometimes on roller-blades - in its shops in the first weeks of the new currency.

Patrick Armand, director of finance for Carrefour Europe, will have been co-ordinating its euro changeover for almost two years by the time the new currency enters the company’s cash registers.

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In each of its six Eurozone markets - France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece -Carrefour has a dedicated two-man team responsible for preparing for the euro.

Until June, the bulk of the effort was spent on ensuring that the information technology systems were euro compatible. It is work that is invisible to the customer but, without a robust system, the adoption of notes and coins could cripple Carrefour’s business within hours.

Now, Carrefour is training more than 110,000 staff across the eurozone on how to handle the new currency. The timing of this has been important: too early and the money is wasted, too late and the company’s productivity will suffer, with long queues, angry customers and abandoned trollies.

The restriction on the use of euro notes and coins until as late as December 1 in France - even for training staff - has been problematic. "The restrictions on our use of real notes and coins have been misguided, as allowing staff to familiarise themselves with them would help to reduce counterfeiting much more than contribute to it," says Mr Armand.

In Italy, Spain and Greece, the average cash transaction will take longer than usual because customers are not used to dealing with decimals. In Greece about 90 per cent of customers pay in cash, whereas 40 per cent of French shoppers pay with a card.

Carrefour is lobbying hard with governments to be allowed to invalidate old notes itself by piercing them with a hole puncher or spike. "This is going to be allowed in Belgium and maybe Italy too," says Mr Armand, who wants to secure the French government’s support for the idea. Carrefour is keen to avoid the security risks and costs involved in transporting the currency to central banks to be taken out of circulation.