I don’t know how reasonable this theory is, but I’ve heard that France was particularly amenable to participating to the NATO action in Libya because Gaddafi was so interested in establishing a new gold backed currency specifically for African countries.
That’s a line I hear a lot. Sort of the gold bug equivalent to the Hillary Death List.
Countries that want to escape the Petro-Dollar routinely have bad relations with the US. But wanting to get off USD (and escape the impact of a western sanctions regime) tends to be more a symptom of failed diplomatic relations than a cause of it.