In the 1950’s, the French economist Jacques Rueff, a close adviser to Charles de Gaulle, argued that “L’Europe se fera par la monnaie, ou ne se fera pas” (Europe will be made through the currency, or it will not be made). Germany’s President Richard von Weizsäcker echoed this view almost a half-century later, declaring that only via a single currency would Europeans achieve a common foreign policy.