My Beauty Best Teacher

Hinsley Njila founder of Real Focus writes about the deleterious effects of the CFA franc and echoes calls for Francophone countries to free themselves from its yoke:

For every growth in France’s GDP, the euro appreciates against the Dollar, thus the CFA franc assumes too high an exchange rate. This puts the brakes on growth in the African economies that are also heavily dependent on commodities produced by Asia and South American countries that have much more flexible currencies. Put simply, a strong euro just kills CFA member economies as they experience declining export prices...A high fixed rate also kills economic growth in member countries, as it’s incompatible with productivity. The level of regional integration among member countries and the two central banks is remarkably low, even further undermining economic growth. Because the economies of Central African countries are heavily dependent on oil, and those of West Africa heavily dependent on other commodities, it is hard to argue for the long-term viability of the CFA unless of course you’re De Gaulle.

And Francophone Africa thinks its independent? Sanou Mbaye writes about the yoke of the CFA franc:

More appalling is the fact that France guarantees the CFA franc’s free convertibility into hard currency, originally on the condition that all 15 Franc Zone countries surrender 100% of their foreign reserves to the French Treasury. The amount was reduced to 65%, and then 50%, in 2005, but France still deducts its share directly from these countries’ export earnings.
Moreover, the mandatory 20% foreign exchange cover stipulated in the convention signed with France in 1962 now stands at 110%. And a foreign-exchange control enacted in 1993 ensures that only France benefits from this capital drain by limiting the free flow of capital to France alone. The ensuing massive capital flight has bled the region’s economies and eroded their competitiveness.

Watch France asks?

"... what the devil are African countries are still doing with a currency called the “Franc” which was first issued over 600 years ago to celebrate the freedom of a French King being delivered from captivity, when in fact the Franc CFA is nothing but part of a political arrangement aimed at ensuring that African countries should forever be deprived of the ability to act with any degree of freedom?..."

In LRB Stephen Smith writes about France's slow withdrawal from its erstwhile colonies:

It’s hard to date the death of Françafrique precisely: the exquisite corpse still haunts many minds, and ghost stories are a lucrative business. Even so, three events in 1994 adumbrated the end: the (unprecedented) devaluation of the CFA franc and with it the crumbling of the monetary wall around the Franco-African enclave economy; the genocide in Rwanda, which left blood on the hands of Africa’s gendarme (having failed to understand a country outside its historical zone of influence, France had thrown its weight behind ‘Hutu power’); and finally, the state funeral of the Ivorian president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the sub-Saharan godfather of Françafrique and an enthusiast of the ‘Franco-African state’ – indeed, it was Houphouët who coined the term at a party congress in 1973.