France, Germany and Others Repatriate Central Bank Gold Reserves

For more than seven decades the safest vaults for sovereign gold were the Federal Reserve in New York and the Bank of England in London. Since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, many countries have begun shifting portions of their strategic gold back to national vaults, citing geopolitical risk, sanctions exposure and the surge in gold prices.

France has recently moved over 120 tonnes of gold from New York to French territory, while Germany is debating a similar pull‑back. India has sharply reduced the share of its gold held abroad, and Poland already repatriated 100 tonnes from London in 2019 using an armored convoy and police escort. Despite the trend, New York and London remain the dominant global storage centres.