Why on earth is this being spun as another terrible Sarkozy initiative?

I don't like Sarkozy and his neanderthal attitude to multicularism and immigration policy anymore than others, but shifting away from GDP would be a great move.

GDP is a pretty rubbish measure of welfare--look at GDP ratings, where the US leads, versus the UNDP's Human Development Index, where failings in American education, social services, income inequality and healthcare put its apparent wealth in perspective. Incidentally, if Sen is put in charge of developing a new metric of welfare (not of "happiness"--that's something else entirely), it may well end up looking like the HDI, since Sen had a hand in its development as well.

It wouldn't be easy, but GDP is a horribly impoverished metric that has distorted national policy priorities for far too long. If a major economy like France moves away from using it, so much he better.

Now sovereign wealth funds are another matter. I'm fairly agnostic on them. But let's not dismiss every Sarkozy policy pronouncement as terrible just because he's a terrible person. Save that kind of ad hominem dismissal for Bush.