French-American Relations

Archive Report

Conflict Between America and France

The agreement on world monetary reform reached at Stockholm on March 30 widened an already broad gulf between the United States and France. Nine of the International Monetary Fund's so-called Group of Ten financial powers approved an American-sponsored plan to create a new reserve asset, known as special drawing rights or “paper gold.” 1 France was the only country to oppose the plan. “The real problems were not touched “at Stockholm, French Finance Minister Michel Debre asserted in Paris on April 1—” discipline of the reserve currencies, and value of the international standard which is gold.” Debre asserted that “Reality will take its revenge, and one will then forget this so-called French solitude.”

France and the United States have been as ...

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