France sold all 129 tons of gold stored in New York.

Ask AI · Will this prompt European countries to follow suit and withdraw their overseas gold?

According to France's International Radio and Reuters, on April 4, the French central bank recently disclosed that between July 2025 and this January, it sold off the last batch of its gold reserves held with the Federal Reserve, capturing an arbitrage gain of 12.8 billion euros (about 101.56 billion yuan at the current exchange rate), reversing the central bank’s originally expected loss of 2.9 billion euros for the 2025 fiscal year.

Recently, the French central bank (BdF) released its 2025 financial report. After recording a net loss of 7.7 billion euros in the 2024 fiscal year, the French central bank returned to profitability in 2025, achieving net profit of 8.1 billion euros.

In its financial report, the French central bank said that this large improvement in performance “benefited from a special project,” which increased income from its own-account assets by 12.8 billion euros. It stated that between July 2025 and January 2026, the French central bank “upgraded” the last 129 tons of outdated gold bars held at the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

In simple terms, when the gold price was at its peak, the French central bank sold this batch of old-style, lower-purity gold—custodied by a U.S. bank—based on its U.S. dollar value to realize arbitrage. Then, when gold prices pulled back, it purchased gold bars from the European market that met its latest requirements for weight and purity, and stored them in Paris.

Precious metals finance outlet Kitco News analyzed that this move by the French central bank can be described as “a win-win in many ways.” First, the French central bank generated a huge profit through the transaction itself, thereby significantly improving the central bank’s overall financial position. At the same time, the French central bank also successfully transferred all of its gold reserves back to its home base in Paris, and avoided possible diplomatic blowback with the U.S. government that could be triggered during an asset transfer.

Overseas media analyses believe that after Trump took office, European countries’ growing lack of trust in the United States’ financial hegemony and credit system has been intensifying. Taking Germany as an example, the Deutsche Bundesbank holds about 1,236 tons of gold stored in the United States, accounting for about 37% of its total gold. Many German politicians and economists have called on the government to withdraw its gold from the United States, but this move has drawn displeasure from the United States.

Michael Jäger, chairman of the German Taxpayers Association and the European Taxpayers Association, said, “Trump is hard to predict—he will take every means to generate revenue. That’s why our gold in the Federal Reserve vault is no longer safe.”

French central bank governor De Gatté insisted that the decision to move France’s gold out of the United States was not driven by political motives.

After this transaction, France’s total gold reserves remained at 2,437 tons, ranking fourth in the world, and all of it is stored in underground gold vaults in Paris.