PARIS — France, a leading backer of European Monetary Union, said today it will lift its last foreign exchange controls at the start of 1990, eliminating restrictions on sending money abroad for the first time since World War II.

The action is linked to the European Community's movement toward a single European currency, which suggests as a first step the elimination of all domestic currency controls.

"The French government has decided to completely free the movement of capital from Jan. 1, 1990, onward," Finance Minister Pierre Beregovoy said in a statement. "This expresses our confidence in the good health of the French economy and in the stability of our currency."