Policymakers in France loved to quote a remark by the French poet Paul Valéry, who in the middle of the chaos of the Great Depression had written that “Europe visibly aspires to be governed by an American committee.” To Europeans, the International Monetary Fund, which supervised exchange-rate arrangements in the post-Bretton Woods world, looked like a perfectly American committee, and France did not like that.
法国的政治家喜欢引用法国诗人瓦莱里（ Paul Val é ry ）的一句话，他在大萧条的乱世中写道：“显然，欧洲巴不得让一个美国委员会来统治自己。”在欧洲人看来，监督着布雷顿森林汇率安排的国际货币基金组织，正是这样一个“美国委员会”的绝佳代表，法国人不喜欢被它统治。