The legend of French Lore begins late at night when an anonymous trader known only as JeanDegen opened Pumpfun and decided to launch a coin called Baguette. At first it was nothing more than a joke, a pixelated baguette with sunglasses and the ticker $BAGUETTE. He expected it to last a few hours, maybe a day at most, and fade into obscurity like thousands of other memecoins before it. But the absurdity struck a chord. Within hours Parisian teenagers were pooling allowance money to ape in, bakers in Montmartre began demanding the token as payment for croissants, and even a group of farmers in Burgundy decided to sell their grape harvest in exchange for tokens rather than euros.
The newspapers mocked it at first, calling it a passing fad and publishing cartoons of baguettes dancing in front of burning French flags. Economists appeared on late-night television to laugh at the idea of a bread-shaped cryptocurrency having any real value. But the markets told a different story. Within a single weekend, Baguette was trading more volume than the Paris stock exchange itself. Liquidity poured in from across Europe, and for the first time in decades, the French economy was the center of global speculation.
The French government, already nervous after years of economic stagnation and falling public trust, tried to dismiss the phenomenon as internet nonsense. Officials insisted that traditional institutions were stable and that no serious citizen would abandon the euro for a meme coin. But it soon became obvious that ministries themselves were quietly holding bags. A deputy from Marseille admitted, red-faced, that he had converted his entire pension into Baguette tokens. The Minister of Finance gave a televised address warning people about the dangers of speculation, but viewers quickly spotted the reflection of a Pumpfun chart glowing on his glasses. The illusion of control shattered overnight. Trust in the government collapsed as citizens realized the officials were just as degenerate as the public.
In this chaos, JeanDegen made his boldest and most audacious move. He announced that Baguette would become the official digital currency of France if the government agreed to back it with national reserves. At first the proposal sounded insane, the kind of thing shouted by protesters outside parliament. But the politicians were cornered. Citizens had stopped paying taxes in euros altogether. Instead, tax offices were receiving envelopes stuffed with QR codes leading to Pumpfun contracts. With no way to fund the government, desperation grew. Against every warning from foreign allies and economists, the National Assembly voted to recognize Baguette as legal tender. Overnight the euro was irrelevant within France. The world gasped as a coin launched by an anonymous trader became a state-backed currency.
For a few euphoric weeks it felt like a miracle. Tourism surged as visitors from around the world flocked to Paris to earn airdrops simply for climbing the Eiffel Tower. Bakeries became unofficial liquidity hubs where citizens swapped coffee for croissant coins and argued over bonding curve mechanics. The Louvre announced that it would sell fractional ownership of the Mona Lisa through tokenization, and within days millions of dollars of tokens had been minted against her enigmatic smile. The French economy, long accused of stagnation, now pulsed with the chaotic rhythm of digital mania. JeanDegen was celebrated as a national hero. He was invited to the Élysée Palace, toasted with champagne by officials, and declared the savior of French finance. Schoolchildren carried posters of the pixelated baguette with slogans like "Bread is the Future."
But beneath the celebrations the trap was already set. With the government fully committed and billions of euros converted into liquidity pools controlled by the Baguette contract, JeanDegen quietly prepared his final strike. He had coded a backdoor into the token from the very beginning. At the absolute peak of euphoria, when confidence was highest, he triggered the mechanism. In a single chilling minute, liquidity drained across every pair. More than one hundred million dollars worth of value vanished into his personal wallets. Exchanges froze. Charts collapsed into vertical red lines. The euro had already been abandoned. Baguette was now worthless. France was left holding bags emptier than the vaults of the Banque de France itself.
Panic turned to rage almost instantly. Citizens who had paid for homes, cars, surgeries, and groceries in tokens realized they had been rugged not just by a clever trader but by their own government that had legitimized the scheme. Discord servers transformed into revolutionary headquarters. Crowds poured into the streets of Paris wielding baguettes as protest signs. Chants of betrayal echoed from the boulevards to the countryside. The National Assembly attempted to restore order with emergency decrees, but lawmakers themselves were devastated, many having lost their personal fortunes in the collapse.
It was then that JeanDegen delivered his most outrageous play. From his hidden wallet, flush with stolen wealth, he sent part of his fortune directly back to the people. He created massive airdrops worth thousands of euros for anyone who pledged to join the movement to vote against Prime Minister François Bayrou. Telegram groups swelled with tens of thousands of angry citizens. Twitch streams broadcast memes and protest footage around the clock, their chat boxes filled with calls for Bayrou's resignation. Farmers in the countryside, students in the cities, even bankers in Paris joined the chorus. Within a week parliament was forced into an emergency session.
BAYROU OUT! 🥖
RUG PULL REVENGE!
VIVE LA BAGUETTE!
The vote was chaos. Deputies shouted over one another, some demanding Bayrou's protection, others waving QR codes of their own losses. Outside, crowds of citizens chanted for blood. Inside, humiliation and fury ruled. Finally, the tally was read. With 297 in favor and 189 against, François Bayrou was officially ousted as Prime Minister of France. The chamber erupted. The streets outside roared with celebration, funded by JeanDegen's own redistributed fortune.
The story spread across the globe like wildfire, cementing itself as the ultimate example of meme coin chaos. A single anonymous trader had launched a coin as a joke, convinced the government to back it, rugged the entire nation for one hundred million dollars, and then used that same money to pay the people to overthrow their leader. This was the birth of French Lore, the tale of how Pumpfun brought down a European government and turned an internet meme into the most powerful weapon of political history.