Migeru:

I listed de Gaulle because of the Empty-Chair crisis (as evidence that France does call the shots - our own Jerome never tires to remind us that the day France threatens to pull out of the EU, Germany will fold again)

That's my original point; if Hollande has the cajones to do so.

Hey, Grandma Moses started late!

Gah, that story seems to lend itself to confusion, partly because it doesn't seem to be well-documented anywhere. But Pompidou was following in De Gaulle's footsteps, and the gesture was just gesticulation. Bretton Woods was already dislocated.

As for France having been, especially in the years of the Six and then Ten, an obvious major power if not the major power in the "European project", I'm not attempting to deny it.