DOLLAR/YEN INTERVENTION RESPONDS TO PRESSURE The Bank of France intervened to buy small amounts of dollars and sell yen in Paris today to stabilise the exchange rates agreed at last month's meeting of Finance Ministers of the Group of Five and Canada, foreign exchange dealers said. But they said recent central bank intervention in the foreign exchange markets appeared to be a limited reaction to temporary pressures rather than a major defence operation. A Bank of France spokesman declined all comment but sources close to the central bank said it had also intervened yesterday. Dealers said the earlier intervention was in concert with the Bundesbank and Bank of Japan. The sources said the French central bank could have been in the market again today in two-way operations, not necessarily on its own account, but to counter short-term pressures arising from the end of the Japanese financial year on March 31. One major French bank said it bought between five and 15 mln dlrs for the central bank and sold yen at 149.28 to the dollar. Another bank said it had been asked by the Bank of France to say it was in the market, a departure from the central bank's usual insistence on confidentiality. But other banks said they had seen no sign of intervention, which they said appeared to be on a very limited scale. "Even if 10 banks were buying five to 15 mln dlrs, you would still be talking of a small overall amount," said one dealer. Recent intervention by the Bank of Japan appeared mainly to have been required to meet year-end window dressing demand for yen. "This is a specific short term phenomenon rather than a wider trend," the dealer said. Operators have been extremely cautious about testing the dollar's trading ranges against the West German mark and Japanese yen. These ranges were set in February's stabilisation agreement reached here by U.S. Treasury Secretary James Baker and the Finance Ministers of Japan, Germany, France, Britain and Canada. But speculative pressures started to build again this week after Baker was quoted on British television at the weekend as repeating earlier statements that Washington had no target for the dollar. Baker yesterday moved to defuse speculation he was talking the dollar down, telling a Cable News Network interviewer and a Senate committee he stood by the Paris agreement. Foreign exchange markets had been misreading his comments, he said.