For the French Élite, Capturing the German Bundesbank Is the Great Prize in the European Monetary War

For the French élite, money is not the lubricant of the economy but the most important lever of power. Capture of the Bundesbank is thus, for them, the great prize in the European monetary war. To secure it, they have been willing to tempt Germany with the lure of political union, while never intending to deliver it.

--Bernard Connolly, The Rotten Heart of Europe: The Dirty War for Europe's Money (London: Faber and Faber, 1996), 4.