Currency trading - franc-ly speaking Charles de Gaulle used to obsess about the "exorbitant privilege" he claimed the US dollar enjoyed from its role as the world's reserve currency. The idea of currency hegemony still obviously resonates in Paris. Christian Noyer, governor of the Bank of France, says London should be deposed as the euro's main trading centre, in favour of the eurozone. Never mind that more euro-denominated business is done in the City than in the eurozone combined. His argument is really part of a fight over creating a banking union to resolve the euro crisis. It is entirely misplaced. Mr Noyer made his remarks while touring Asia to tout Paris as a centre of renminbi trading. No irony presumably intended, then. But the idea that euro-denominated foreign exchange transactions should be concentrated in the eurozone flies in the face of history. Currency trading is the most globalised corner of the financial markets. Before the launch of the euro, London was the world's main centre for currency trading - including in the D-Mark - with a roughly one-third share. That had grown to nearly 40 per cent by 2010, Bank for International Settlements data show. Neither Frankfurt not Paris features in the top seven forex trading centres, which include such longstanding international trading hubs as Hong Kong and Singapore. The argument that euro trading needs to be located in the eurozone so that the European Central Bank can "provide liquidity and ensure oversight of its own currency" is also irrelevant. Few central banks in free market countries have a role in currency oversight. The fact that so much euro trading takes place in London is entirely due to market forces such as liquidity and trading infrastructure. One way for that to change would be eurozone-imposed restrictions on the international circulation of the euro. That would make a mockery of the single market and be incompatible with its architects" ambition for the euro to rival the US dollar as a reserve currency. A Gaullist vision of the euro merely adds to its manifest problems.