Image via Wikipedia
By Gillian Tett in Davos and Ben Hall
President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday stepped up his calls for a new Bretton Woods system to stabilise global exchange rates, promising proposals for reform of the international monetary system when France takes over the presidency of the G8 and G20 next year.
“The prosperity of the postwar era owned much to Bretton Woods … we need a new Bretton Woods,” he told the World Economic Forum in Davos. “We cannot preach free trade and tolerate monetary dumping. France, which will chair G20 in 2011, will place reform of the monetary system on the agenda.”
France has consistently called for action on currencies before international meetings, but its calls have either fallen on deaf ears, or it has failed to raise the issue at the meeting itself.
French officials say Paris is determined to come up with concrete proposals next year. But the US and UK would almost certainly reject a new global pact to peg currencies, and most European countries, including France, would reject any suggestion that China could peg its exchange rate at anything like the current rate.
Mr Sarkozy, the first French president to address Davos, delivered a fiery half-hour speech full of rhetorical blasts against the excesses of financial capitalism that prompted many Davos delegates to stand in applause.
Sarkozy calls for action on currencies
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=b4946808-aa54-4786-a35f-8e1e5afd5ad4)
