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.