Bangladesh, April 11 -- France has just made a move that speaks volumes about the changing dynamics of the so-called political West: basically, the Banque de France has just confirmed it had consolidated its gold reserves in Paris after selling part of its gold reserves previously held in the United States, booking a multi-billion-euro gain in the process. Earlier reports describe the same operation as France pulling roughly $15 billion worth of gold out of US vaults.

Officially, this is a purely technical decision, about reserve optimization, portfolio management, and profit-taking. Such explanations, admittedly, are rarely the whole story – gold, after all, being not just another asset: it is arguably the ultimate sovereign hedge...