This is not gain at all. At least in theory: You own some tons of gold at the start of the process, you have the same tons of gold at the end of the process.<p>The only real gain is that you have gold in the US custody and the US can be tempted to just use it without telling you anything.<p>In other words, you had "paper gold" or "virtual gold" that the US can confiscate anytime, for example after invading Greenland, blackmailing France to do nothing.<p>You gain custody of what is yours.
From the full press release:<p>"In 2025 and at the start of 2026, while the volume of gold reserves remained
unchanged, the Banque de France had to align a residual portion (5%) with technical guidelines, resulting in a significant realised currency gain. This exceptional foreign exchange income totalled EUR 11 billion for 2025."<p>-- the keyword here likely being "realized"
Assets like this are one of the complexities in calculating national import and export figures.<p>For example, imagine there's some German-owned gold in a UK bank vault, the owners sell it to a UK broker who sells it to a Chinese investor? The physical bars don't move, but on paper it's been imported to the UK then exported.<p>But a lot of people looking at export figures are expecting to learn things about the manufacturing industry, and picturing exports as washing machines, cars and computer chips - which imply lots of well paid jobs for skilled labour. So the UK reports import/export figures with 'non-monetary gold' listed separately.<p>(The fact flows of gold are highly volatile allows a classic bit of political sleight-of-hand - if you include gold, UK exports are both up and down since Brexit, depending on the pair of dates you choose)
As @somenameforme wrote:<p>[] they sold their 'non-standard' (seems to be bars below the modern purity standards) US reserves, and replaced them with new reserves purchased elsewhere which are now stored in France. As the price of gold continued to rise as they did this, they ended up making a bunch of dinero while also centralizing their reserves.<p>sounds like a gain to me.
It's more of a loss for the USA, which IMO is the unwritten point of the article.<p>France upgraded their gold bars to a new standard and as they were doing that, gold has appreciated massively in price, so France has the new shiny easier to trade bars, and the USA has the old harder to trade bars.
which can be the difference between losing that entire amount or gaining it, and in this situation with this America, this is a big win if they manage to get it back in fact, if it hasn't been stolen or sold already
Is anyone here actually reading the article? Yes, they really made a gain of $15B:<p>> But instead of refining and transporting the gold, it opted to sell the bars and purchase new bullion in Europe. […] Due to rising gold prices, the move helped the bank to generate a capital gain of 13 billion euros ($15 billion),
This doesn't make sense. If they first sold the bars held in the US, then the gold prices rose, then they bought gold in Europe, how the hell did that amount to a capital gain of $15b? How exactly do prices rising over the course of the process lead to these $15b?
Gold is down 10+% since its recent peak. They likely sold then and repurchased later.
Then they made money thanks to gold prices fluctuating, not thanks to gold prices rising?<p>And how does a 10% market shift lead to gaining $15b, roughly the value of 100 tons of gold, from the sale and re-purchase of 129 tons of gold?<p>This math ain't mathing.
Dumpling $15B on the market should lead to a drop. Anyway, the gold price is not always going up.
Did they buy before selling? Otherwise that doesn’t make sense.
Good for France to relocate gold back to their own territory, but, uh, how can this result in a 15 B gain?<p>"The overall size of France’s gold reserves still remained unchanged at roughly 2,437 tonnes, which are now entirely held at the BdF’s underground vault in La Souterraine."<p>Is this some special form of French accounting, where the gold becomes more valuable when it returns to French soil?
It's gold only if it comes from the Dore région of France. Otherwise it's just sparkling metal.
Over about a year they sold their 'non-standard' (seems to be bars below the modern purity standards) US reserves, and replaced them with new reserves purchased elsewhere which are now stored in France. As the price of gold continued to rise as they did this, they ended up making a bunch of dinero while also centralizing their reserves.
> As the price of gold continued to rise as they did this,<p>Seems counterintuitive to me. This would only make gains when they bought the new gold before selling the old, or when there's some arbitrage going on between Gold/USD, Gold/EUR and USD/EUR.<p>If they first sold the old for USD, then bought the new for USD, with a rising gold price, they'd miss the price-gain during the time between the trades, when they held the USD. It'd be a loss, not a gain.<p>If there's some arbitrage going on, then I highly doubt that brings $15B gain. The differences would have to be <i>huge</i>.<p>I think the (author (AI)) writing that article is simply mixing up stuff. I think this gain is not a cause-effect of the conversion, merely the gains from rising gold prices on the gold it holds over that period.
The source is a press conference where they state the total amount and total value of gold stored hasn't changed. In le figaro they report the profit is due to variation in price between the different transactions. Which seems to be a polite way to say they took exceptional risk.
> In le figaro they report the profit is due to variation in price between the different transactions. Which seems to be a polite way to say they took exceptional risk.<p>Nah it's just regular realized gain (delta between acquisition price and selling price).<p><a href="https://www.banque-france.fr/fr/actualites/resultats-2025-de-la-banque-de-france" rel="nofollow">https://www.banque-france.fr/fr/actualites/resultats-2025-de...</a><p>(so it's kinda irrelevant, it's just they have to put it in their books)
They repatriated 129 tonnes in total, its was absolutely impossible to make $15B from that since that’s what 129 tonnes are worth in total more or less.
They didn't repatriate the gold in the sense of physically moving it from the US to France. Instead, they sold the gold that was held in the US and used the money raised to buy gold from other sources, which is held in France.<p>Different gold, and two financial transactions, accounts for gain.
Well they has 129 tonnes in US which happens to be wroth around $15B or so. Probably the author has no clue what they are talking about and grossly misinterpreted..
I don't understand this. Did they increase the overall amount of gold they held?
Sold it at the peak, and then bought it locally a few months later.
First sell the gold, then buy same amount at a slightly lower price a bit later (on average)
> the price of gold continued to rise as they did this<p>This would mean they sold low and bought high, right?
price of gold dropped from $5500 to $4600 in the last few weeks then came back. all is possible
It’s because they’re using European mathematics. You wouldn’t understand if you’re American.<p>In reality the article is attempting to account for a capital gain pnl accounting for taxes.
Usually that's how you want your selling and buying combos to be...
Impossible to make anywhere close to that amount since they only sold 129 tonnes
But the gold price has been rising (on average) a lot over the period July 2025 to January 2026
From the annual report, it looks like the headline number (XXB gain) is just because it's realized capital gain (which due to their reporting requirement appears in their annual report, unlike unrealized gains).<p>They have ~same amount of gold between both years and it doesn't look like they took extra market risk.
They sold the existing holdings and bought new of equivalent weight(?), so somehow they ended on profit on those moves.
My guess is they buy before selling. An increasing market with a large buy might increase enough to allow for a profitable sell.<p>On top of this, this is physical gold, so location of the gold must play into it as well.
Gold in hand is worth $15B in the bush?
This seems to be the source article (Reuters, March 24): <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/french-central-bank-books-15-billion-gain-gold-reserve-upgrade-2026-03-24/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/business/french-central-bank-books-1...</a>
Germany also needs to pull all gold. We have 1236t there.
Would be good to not depend on the US that much any longer, since they have proven to be such an unreliable "partner". Even in a non-Trump future one cannot rely upon some future election not resulting in some similar disaster. Better to pull out, before some hothead gets weird ideas about that gold.
On that topic, video about the underground vault: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txyKenOq5Pw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txyKenOq5Pw</a>
Site doesn't load for me.
<a href="https://archive.is/ePH8u" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/ePH8u</a>
Not done for political reasons.
Would it count as a "political reason" if their risk management calculations crossed a threshold where it's worth it to move the gold back? I imagine such calculations are done and revised all the time and account for the perceived stability and reliability of a country.
And winning athletes and sports teams don't go to the white house due to 'scheduling conflicts'. And Amazon paid $75m for a Melania documentary because they saw real profit and need there. And Qatar bought Trump an airplane because it was important for his work. And everyone nominates him for a nobel prize because he ends wars and doesn't get into wars (we're just in a special military operation atm).
Of course not . absolutely definitely nothing to do with the mad king (who is great and handsome)
Unless one reads between the lines.
Are you suggesting they did this for technical or economic reasons? Like what? Is the US charging an unreasonable storage fee?<p>I'd read the article, but the site seems to be down.
What makes you say that?
> BdF Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau said the decision to keep the new bars in Paris is “not politically motivated,” as the higher-standard gold bars it bought were traded on a European market.
Reading the article is what made him say that.
Looks like we're at the beginning of<p>FBRICS
We in Holland should do the same but our government (especially the right wing VVD) adores the US so they never bothered :(
Considering how Project2025 declared Europeans as enemy, it really is time to focus on more reliable partners than the current (and most likely future) USA version. Trump is a war-president - when he babbles about what Project2025 tells him to say, he stumbles over his own lies increasingly so, most likely because his brain no longer works that well. The recent "we can not extend health care and social care because we must wage wars" was kind of a slip-up of the real agenda - not that this is a real secret either, but even folks who voted for Trump thinking he cares about him (as if billionaires care about other people ever), should now realise the path the USA has decided to walk. ICE shooting down US citizens also show this - you protest, you get shot.
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I did this once. I bought Bitcoin on an exchange for $65k then I transferred it to my own wallet for a gain of $65k then I sold that for $65k for a total of $130k. Then I used the $130k on the exchange to buy Bitcoin again. Before I knew it, I was a trillionaire. Unfortunately the last time I tried to do it I bought my coins on FTX.<p>When you buy it make sure you use a French account though. If you use any other account then transferring the Bitcoin will just get you a Bitcoin not both the Bitcoin and the money. It’s European mathematics.