France sent a warship to New York harbor in early August 1971 with instructions to bring back its gold from the New York Federal Reserve Bank. It was, after all, French President Charles de Gaulle who remained consistently skeptical about the US dollar, saying at a press conference on February 4, 1965, that it was impossible for the dollar to be “an impartial and international trade medium . . . It is in fact a credit instrument reserved for one state only.”

– The Huffington Post