France pulls last gold held in US for $15B gain

The Bank of France (BdF) says it has pulled the remaining gold held in New York and replaced them with a similar amount of gold bars in its vaults in Paris.

The gold amounted to 129 tonnes — or about 5% of the bank’s total holdings, according to the bank’s press release issued last week.

France, one of the world’s leading gold holders, has been storing some of its bullion with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since the late 1920s.

However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold.

Despite that, France still held a small portion of its gold with the Reserve Bank of New York.

Gold reserve upgrade

Over the past 20 years , the BdF has also been replacing its “older” or “non‑standard” gold holdings — such as those in New York — with bars that meet ​modern international standards.

Under the recommendation of a 2024 internal audit, the bank went ahead to replace the US-held gold between July 2025 and January 2026. But instead of refining and transporting the gold, it opted to sell the bars and purchase new bullion in Europe.

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.

Due to rising gold prices, the move helped the bank to generate a capital gain of 13 billion euros ($15 billion), bringing it to a net profit of 8.1 billion euros for the 2025 financial year after a net loss of 7.7 billion euros in 2024.

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.

The French central bank still ​has 134 tons of gold to bring up to standard, which it aims to ​do by 2028.