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This article examines why and how France, under the leadership of President François Mitterrand, came to make the advancement of monetary integration an absolute priority in the European project during the second half of the 1980s. It explores the way in which French decision makers obtained the consent of an initially reluctant West Germany when Helmut Kohl gave his final acceptance during the European Council meeting in Strasbourg in December 1989. It looks at three specific periods: the years 1984-86, when France successfully managed to put monetary integration back on the European agenda against the backdrop of a new European relance; the years 1986-1988, when an acceleration in the monetary dossier resulted from a new Franco-German dynamic; and the years 1988-89, from the Hanover European Council to the Strasbourg European Council.