LE PEN CALLS FOR AUDIT OF FRENCH GOLD RESERVES / MINEWEB

Le Pen calls for audit of French gold reserves

The latest request for an audit for a nation’s officially held gold reserves has come from France’s Marine le Pen.

Author: Lawrence Williams

Posted: Wednesday , 26 Nov 2014


LONDON (Mineweb) -  Demands for gold reserve accountability have been rising in Europe – is this something that could spread around the world for those nations who own gold in vaults in countries other than their own – or indeed supposedly held even in their own countries? 

We have seen Germany requesting repatriation of around half of its gold reserves, mostly held in the US, the recent return of some of its foreign held gold to The Netherlands, the Swiss referendum on the return of much of the nations’s gold and the raising of its reserve levels to 20% of its foreign reserves, and now the latest is a request to M. Christian Noyer, the Governor of the Bank of France, for that nation’s gold reserves to be comprehensively audited. 

The request has come in the form of an open letter from the French right wing Front National opposition leader, Marine Le Pen. In it she requests that: 

 “This comprehensive audit should contain:

 

·     A complete inventory of the physical gold amounting to 2,435 tonnes currently displayed and their quality (serial number, purity, bars 'Good Delivery' ...), conducted by an independent French body (to be defined). This inventory, under supervision of a bailiff, must indicate the country in which the gold reserves are stored in France or abroad.

·     A census of all formal financial employment agreement or secret vis-à-vis private banks and corporations, or bilateral loan between France and national and international institutions, having pawned the gold of France to ensure rescue of the euro. In this case, the comprehensive audit should contain the conditions of agreement or loans.”

In her letter she goes on to refer to the Swiss gold referendum, moves to repatriate gold by Germany and Poland, the recent Dutch repatriation of 122.5 tonnes of gold as well as France being a signatory to the latest Central Bank Gold Agreement “which provides no transfer of quotas on this five-year period (2014-2019), in contrast to the three previous agreements.”

She also noted: “Over the period 2004-2012, about 614.6 tonnes of gold were sold by France, while at the same time the other central banks of the Eurosystem with the ECB have agreed to limit their gold sales. According to a report of the Court of Auditors in 2012, this operation is extremely costly for public authorities and constitutes a serious violation of the national heritage, made without any democratic consultation.”

Whether the French Central Bank or Government will respond in any positive way to this initiative, or if the letter published on the Front National website is in fact genuine, remains to be seen. 
 
However the very fact that such a letter has been presented suggests growing French unease over whether the world’s official gold vaults actually contain what they are purported to, and precisely what is the ownership of gold within them.  The gold repatriation movement is thus gaining momentum.  Indeed le Pen’s letter may well precipitate a flood of such demands with no country prepared to stand last in line for repatriation of its gold from foreign vaults just in case that gold is not really there.

Thus perhaps the late Venezuelan President Chavez’s move to have his country’s gold repatriated in 2011/12 will prove to have been an extremely smart one.

Doubts over gold repatriation surfaced primarily following Germany’s request to have a large proportion of its gold repatriated which only managed to elicit 5 tonnes from the biggest holding in the US in the first year. There has been a considerable amount of doubt expressed, particularly on pro-gold sites and by such outspoken politicians as Ron Paul in the US, over whether supposedly officially held gold has been leased out and cannot be returned given the recent high demand volumes which appear to exceed total supply. There are thus doubts as to where all the gold seen flowing from West to East in particular is coming from.

All the above is yet another factor which could start a run on gold. The Central Bankers will likely be resistant to such moves whether they in fact hold the gold they report, or not, but there certainly is the likelihood that some gold reserves have been depleted through gold leasing, but how widespread this may be remains open to speculation as long as the Central Bankers hold firm.