‘France-Germany devalued. It’s 14-18 at 13.50.’ On 25 August 1971, French cartoonist Roland Moisan illustrates the monetary turbulence in France and West Germany following the decision by US President Nixon to abrogate the Bretton Woods Agreement, resulting in the suspension of dollar/gold parity. French President Pompidou criticises the dangers of a generalised floating of currencies and, unlike his German partner, advocates the idea of maintaining fixed parity between currencies. The monetary tensions between the two countries are running so high that Moisan depicts President Georges Pompidou in a First World War uniform and Chancellor Willy Brandt as a German soldier with a pointed helmet, both armed and squaring up against each other in trenches resembling those of the First World War.