According to Kitco - The Bank of France (Banque de France - BdF) has just attracted attention when announcing a deal related to gold prices and national reserves, helping this agency earn an estimated profit of about 15 billion USD.
According to the announcement on March 25 about the financial results for 2025, BdF said that a "special item" helped reverse business results, from a loss of 2.9 billion euros to an annual profit of 8.1 billion euros.
BdF stated that income from proprietary trading assets increased by 12.2 billion euros thanks to the special item. In 2025 and early 2026, although the total volume of gold reserves remained unchanged, the bank adjusted the remaining part by about 5% according to technical guidelines, thereby generating a very large realized exchange rate profit, totaling 11 billion euros in 2025.
The deal is considered a clever move by France to move gold out of the depository in the US without causing diplomatic tension. Instead of directly requesting the withdrawal of gold from the US stockpile, BdF sold old gold bars, with lower purity, right in New York at the USD price in the context that gold prices are at a historical peak.
After that, this bank used the money collected to buy back gold bars that met new standards in weight and purity in Europe, right at the time the market adjusted down. Thanks to this, France avoided transatlantic shipping and security costs, while optimizing profits from price differences.
BdF said that the bank's net equity - including equity and undistributed interest from asset holdings - currently reached 283.4 billion euros, a sharp increase compared to 202.7 billion euros in 2024.
In addition, net equity also includes the state's gold revaluation fund and foreign exchange reserves at 11.4 billion euros, to offset future monetary expenses.
BdF Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau said the decision to keep the new gold bars in Paris instead of New York "is not politically motivated".
After the transaction, France's total gold reserves remained unchanged at around 2,437 tons. Currently, all of the country's gold reserves are stored in the BdF underground tunnel in La Souterraine, Paris.
