Another year, another French finance minister moaning about the dominance of the dollar. Michel Sapin recited what has become an unstated oath of office at the weekend, attacking the role of the dollar as global reserve currency. In a twist, he focused on trade, but his view was pithily put by his predecessor Valéry Giscard d’Estaing when he laid into the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege”.

It was obvious what Mr Giscard d’Estaing was complaining about: John Connally, Richard Nixon’s Treasury secretary, imposed import duties and devalued the dollar, after the US reneged on its promise to other major countries to swap dollars for gold. Mr Connally’s classic statement of the dollar’s position was that it is “our currency, but your problem”.

The Chinese are also miffed about the dollar, but for a different reason: they own a lot of greenbacks as part of their attempt to prevent the renminbi strengthening, and have suffered from the dollar’s weakness. Unlike the French, the Chinese are trying to do something about it, pushing cross-border renminbi trading – with recent support from Russia. Russia, like France, is bothered by America’s use of the dollar’s global role to support its foreign policy aims, which resulted in a $9bn fine of France’s BNP Paribas.