And would the United States under President Barack Obama consider such a proposal although it could seem very much intended to smother the dollar and the de facto G-2 duopoly developing between the Americans and Chinese?

Funny, where interesting answers can be hiding. Mr. Obama’s great friend, President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, attending an economic conference with Mr. Sarkozy in St. Petersburg in June, seemed to board the French president’s ship of dreams — Sarko has talked about his G-20 presidency’s projects as an effort for “civilization” — by talking up a multicurrency reserve portfolio.

In the process, the Russian seemed to admit it was not a certain hit.

“Three to five years ago, any discussion of this seemed like a fantasy that may never come true,” Mr. Medvedev said. “Now we’re discussing it in absolute seriousness with a number of countries, including our American partners, who are, perhaps, least interested in other countries replacing the dollar.”

Read that as considerably more than perhaps.

Unlike the Plaza Accords, where the United States dealt only with allies, admonitions about or moves against the dollar from a G-20 including countries beyond the democratic pale (as well as open markets or nonmanipulated currencies) would not go down well with an American electorate having big leadership choices to make in 2012.

Besides, Sarko’s Very Grand Ambitions have a history of imploding through excess.

His project for a Union of the Mediterranean, in which France would be the big dog in a quasi-confederation of South European and Arab countries, has come to next to nothing.

And now his desired reordering of the international monetary system (“I am establishing the basis that will save international capitalism”) is paired with a hazy idea to diminish quantitative measures for rating economies through the establishment of “qualitative” standards that would “integrate” factors like “well-being” or the “cost of our environment.”

Mr. Sarkozy’s motivations surely involve much sincerity, love of the big stage, and the reality that he faces difficult re-election in the spring of 2012.