The World Gold Council estimates that China's gold demand could double in 10 years as more investors there embrace precious metals.

WSJ: China Buys In to Gold's Allure

But those who embrace this new investment framework stand to achieve double-bottom line results in the form of strong financial, as well as socially meaningful, returns that yield positive impacts on the environment and on communities around the world.

FORBES: Philanthropy, Now Yielding Financial Returns

Clever, pragmatic Frenchmen like Mr Lamy, or Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Mr Jospin's finance minister, who understand the need to embrace globalisation yet belong to a political culture that instinctively rejects it, inhabit a peculiar double world.

ECONOMIST: Pascal Lamy, free-market Frenchman?