Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said while the idea of creating more stability between the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen and the new European Euro was appealing in theory, the practical problems of doing it were "enormous."

But Chirac said he planned to use his Washington visit to promote the French currency stability plan in meetings Thursday with officials at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and in discussions Friday with President Clinton.

"The world financial system needs to be improved because the world has changed," Chirac said in an interview in Paris with The Associated Press and Associated Press Television News. "We should not accept too large" fluctuations in currencies.

While France has received support for its ideas from Germany and Japan, the plan is unlikely to advance given the strong opposition of the United States.

In addition to the Washington meetings, the idea will be on the agenda when Rubin and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Green span meet with their counterparts from the world's largest economies in Bonn, Germany, on Saturday.

Despite the disagreement over currency alignment proposals, Rubin said the Group of Seven nations — the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada — were committed to overhauling the global financial architecture to prevent future Asian-style currency crises from occurring.

While Brazil was rocked earlier this year when it was forced to devalue its currency, there are a number of signs that some Asian nations are beginning to stabilize following steep downturns. The crisis began in Asia in July 1997 and leveled the Russian economy last August, triggering major turbulence in U.S. and other world markets and prompting the Fed to cut interest rates to restore calm.

The G-7 finance officials are expected to endorse two smaller proposals on Saturday to promote greater disclosure of foreign currency reserves among countries and to create an informal forum where countries can discuss voluntary ways to improve their regulation of financial institutions, including banks, brokerage houses and hedge funds.

The U.S. economy has continued to expand at healthy rates despite the global turmoil that has sent America's trade deficit soaring, increasing protectionist pressures as American manufacturers and farmers suffer from the loss of overseas markets and a flood of cheaper imports into this country.

Rubin said the "international system cannot sustain indefinitely" such huge trade imbalances and he called on Japan and Europe to do more to stimulate domestic growth and serve as markets for troubled economies.

While the French have not totally spelled out their views on how major currencies could be better aligned, one major idea being explored would be to create bands for the major currencies with commitments by countries to intervene by buying and selling currencies on the open market to maintain those exchange rates.

But Rubin told reporters Wednesday that "banks become wonderful speculative targets for those who are worried about speculation" as traders test government's resolve to spend their reserves.

Private economists are split on the idea of establishing a more stable currency trading system. Many argue that a government's efforts to maintain a fixed currency level are destined to be overwhelmed by the size of the global currency market where $1.5 trillion is traded daily. But some analysts insist it is critical that some system be established to tame current volatility.

"We have learned a lot in the past two years about the dangers of unfettered markets," said Lawrence Chimerine, economist at the Economic Strategy Institute, a Washington think tank. "We have got to find a way to slow massive capital flows down."

Rubin said the Bonn meeting is expected to also call for further discussions among G-7 countries and developing nations at a conference in Germany in mid-March and a follow-up meeting in Washington in April.