The Slow Demise of France’s Enduring Colonial Currency System in Africa

There is a currency circulating across 14 African nations. Designed in Paris, printed in France, it required for decades that its users deposit up to half their foreign reserves in the French Treasury. Called the CFA franc (officially Communauté Financière Africaine, i.e. African Financial Community), it has operated continuously since 1945. The same instrument created to control and manage France's colonial possessions in sub-Saharan Africa still functions in many ways today. More than 155 million people use it; 14 formally sovereign nations depend on it. And the debate over whether it represents stability or subjugation has never been louder.

UEMOA + CEMAC + Comoros = CFA franc zone.

 

A country that controls another country's currency controls that economy. France understood this better than almost anyone. While the British pound zone dissolved France held on and the invisible scaffolding linking Paris to Dakar, Abidjan, Yaoundé and Libreville has never been dismantled.

Return to 1945. Europe lies in ruins. France, liberated from Nazi Germany, struggles to feed itself. Inflation spirals; the metropolitan franc loses value weekly. Across the Atlantic the Bretton Woods agreements establish the postwar financial order: the gold-backed dollar as global anchor, every nation required to declare its currency's value to the new IMF. France's shattered economy forces a sharp devaluation of the metropolitan franc against the dollar.

 

West African CFA franc—fiat bills with zero intrinsic value, backed

only by an ECB-mandated fixed exchange rate to the euro.

 

De Gaulle's finance minister Pleven applies different rates to the metropole and the colonies. In France the franc falls hard. In French West Africa, French Equatorial Africa, and the Comoros a new currency is born at a stronger rate: one CFA franc equals 1.7 metropolitan francs. By 1948 the ratio is two to one. The colonies suddenly possess a currency stronger than France's own.

Presented as generosity, the mechanics tell another story. A strong currency in a raw-material exporter that imports finished goods acts as an import subsidy and export tax. It cheapens French manufactures for the colony and makes the colony’s own goods less competitive abroad. From day one the CFA franc's pricing structure channeled African purchasing power toward French industry and quietly strangled the development of competitive local export sectors. Solid Rothschild architecture designed to endure.

A fixed exchange rate set below equilibrium creates excess demand for foreign currency

(Qd > Qs), which the central bank must cover by selling reserves to maintain the peg.

 

And its original name said everything: Colonies Françaises d’Afrique—French Colonies of Africa. No euphemism. Notes were printed then, and still are, in Chamalières by the Banque de France. Four pillars underpinned the system and proved remarkably durable: a fixed exchange rate with the French franc (later the euro) guaranteeing unlimited convertibility by the French Treasury; free capital movement between the CFA zone and France; and the operations account requiring the zone's central banks to deposit a large share of foreign-exchange reserves in the French Treasury.

At founding that share was 100 percent. By 1973 it fell to 65 percent; by 2005 to a 50 percent ceiling. Even at half, 'sovereign nations' handed over half their foreign exchange wealth to a former colonial power in exchange for a guarantee against currency collapse. Defenders cite stability: relatively low inflation compared with much of Africa, insulation from crises that wrecked Zimbabwe or Venezuela. Outside one massive 1994 devaluation the CFA franc has tracked the French franc and then the euro almost lockstep for nearly eighty years. But stability for whom, and at what cost?

Viral 2019 Italian TV clip of Giorgia Meloni (then opposition leader, now Prime Minister) holding a CFA franc note and calling it France's "colonial currency" to exploit resources via seigniorage and export controls.  

Pegged at 655.957 CFA francs to the euro, member states cannot adjust the exchange rate to their own conditions. They cannot devalue to boost exports, expand the money supply in a downturn, or set independent interest rates. Monetary policy—the core tool of any sovereign country—is outsourced to the European Central Bank, which sets policy for Germany, France and the Netherlands, not Senegal, Cameroon or Chad. In 2008 and again during the COVID-19 plandemic, countries with sovereign currencies printed money and cut rates; CFA countries could not.

Economists have long argued the franc is chronically overvalued relative to the productive capacity of its users. Overvaluation makes imports cheap and exports expensive—fine for comprador elites buying luxury goods in Paris, devastating for farmers selling cocoa or cotton against competitors with weaker, flexible currencies. The structural result is a permanent tilt toward importing rather than producing and deep dependence on foreign capital. This is a design feature, not an accident.

 

Olympio, murdered—like Kennedy—by the small hat money printers in 1963.

 

Sylvanus Olympio, first president of Togo, was elected in 1961 and immediately pushed to leave the CFA system and establish a national central bank. He saw monetary and political sovereignty as inseparable. On January 13, 1963, less than three years after independence, he was assassinated in a coup led by a French-trained sergeant. The new government proved far more amenable to French interests; Togo remained in the CFA zone. Leaders who challenge French economic control tend to meet violent ends or removal; those who cooperate enjoy long, French-supported tenures.

Sankara—radical anti-imperialist, pan-Africanist and austere leader

—prioritized self-reliance, massive social reforms, and integrity.

Murdered by the small hat money printers in 1987. 

The most iconic case is Thomas Sankara. In 1983, aged 33, he seized power in Upper Volta and renamed it Burkina Faso—"land of upright people." He ran mass vaccination campaigns, planted over ten million trees against desertification, banned female genital mutilation, appointed women to high office, refused air-conditioning, drove a modest Renault 5 and cut official salaries including his own. His greatest offense in Paris's eyes was open challenge to the CFA franc and Françafrique—the web of political, military and economic ties binding former colonies to France. On October 15, 1987 he was assassinated in a coup led by his deputy Blaise Compaoré, who then ruled the country for 27 years and reversed the anti-French course. In April 2022 a Burkinabe military tribunal convicted Compaoré and associates in absentia; Compaoré, living in exile in Ivory Coast, received a life sentence. The tribunal confirmed French agents were in Ouagadougou the day after the coup. Sankara's family formally accused France of masterminding the killing. Macron pledged in 2017 to declassify related documents; they have not been fully released.

Françafrique operates on a larger scale still: French bases, advisers inside ministries, preferential access for French firms to African resources, and the CFA franc as monetary backbone. Comprador elites enjoyed convertibility that let them move wealth to Paris, an overvalued currency that made luxury imports affordable, and French political and military protection. Ordinary citizens faced scarce credit, interest rates dictated by European conditions, import competition that crushed local firms, and capital mobility that functioned largely as a one-way valve outward.

France confronts rising anti-French sentiment in West Africa—Bamako,

Mali, 2020: "France get out" demonstration against French, EU and UN forces. 

By the late 1980s the franc was severely overvalued. Commodity prices—cocoa, coffee, cotton, oil—were falling while the French franc appreciated, dragging the CFA with it. On January 12, 1994 the CFA franc was devalued 50 percent overnight. The decision was taken in Paris, not in any African capital. French Prime Minister Édouard Balladur later confirmed it was done at France's instigation "to help these countries in their development." Overnight the purchasing power of roughly 150 million people was halved. Prices of imported food, medicine and fuel doubled; urban poverty surged; foreign-currency public debt effectively doubled. The cost fell entirely on African citizens who had no vote and no veto. The event laid bare the system's reality: sovereign in name, monetary dependencies in fact.

When France joined the euro in 1999 the CFA franc was pegged at 655.957 to the euro—a rate that still holds. The anchor changed; the dynamics did not. Monetary policy is now set by the European Central Bank for a union of wealthy European states with zero representation or accountability to the African economies bound to it. Notes continue to be printed in Chamalières; until recent reforms the operations accounts still funneled reserves to the French Treasury; French representatives sat on the boards of the BCEAO in Dakar and the BEAC in Yaoundé.

 

Rothschild stooge Macron arrives in Ivory Coast—for Christmas with his troops.

 

By the 2010s a new generation of African intellectuals and leaders challenged the system with growing force. Senegalese economist Ndongo Samba Sylla called the CFA franc "an anachronism requiring orderly elimination." In 2015 Chadian President Idriss Déby declared that a "cord preventing development in Africa" must be severed—everyone knew which cord. In 2019 Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni held up a CFA note on television and accused France of exploitation, an accusation that resonated widely.

 

In December 2019, under pressure, Macron and Ivory Coast's Alassane Ouattara announced reforms in Abidjan: the West African CFA franc would become the Eco; the 50 percent reserve deposit requirement would end; French board seats at the BCEAO would disappear; the operations account would close and reserves return to Dakar. Headlines called it historic. The fine print was more cautious: the fixed euro peg remained, French convertibility guarantee continued, and France retained a backup credit line. The most symbolically offensive features were removed; the macro-economically decisive peg stayed.

Muammar Gaddafi's African gold dinar was a 2009-2011 pan-African initiative to introduce a single, gold-backed currency aimed to replace the US dollar and the French-backed CFA franc across Africa, allowing nations to sell oil and resources for gold to achieve complete financial independence from Western systems. Murdered by the small hat money printers in 2011.

Critics call it rebranding. The name Eco had already been chosen for a broader ECOWAS common currency that would have included Nigeria; a francophone-only Eco complicated that project. The reforms covered only the eight West African states. The six Central African users of the BEAC franc—Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon—still deposit 50 percent of reserves in Paris and still have French board representation. As of today, the Eco has not launched; the latest ECOWAS target of 2027 is viewed with widespread skepticism.

Meanwhile the Sahel transformed. Coups between 2020 and 2023 toppled governments in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Guinea, each fueled in part by anti-French sentiment over military presence, European and US sponsored Jihadist terrorism, economic extraction and the CFA franc. In 2024 Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger left ECOWAS and formed the landlocked Alliance of Sahel States, explicitly rejecting French influence and discussing exit from the CFA franc toward national or shared Sahelian currencies. Chad and Senegal demanded withdrawal of French troops, Niger the retreat of the French and Americans. 

 

» The slave that cannot carry out his own revolt deserves no pity. «
Ibrahim Traoré, President of Burkina Faso.

 

Senegal's president Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his prime minister Ousmane Sonko campaigned in 2023 on economic sovereignty; Sonko declared in 2025 that the CFA franc is "both a symbolic and an economic problem." The cry "La France dégage" (France, get out!) has echoed from Niamey to Bamako to Ouagadougou to Dakar, encompassing French military bases, mining concessions and, above all, monetary sovereignty. The CFA franc had become the most visible symbol of unfinished decolonization.

» Jub, Jubal, Jubanti. «
(Be upright, act with integrity, and rectify what is crooked.)

Faye, elected president of Senegal in 2024, had expelled French troops by March 2025 and was

elected Chairman of ECOWAS in July 2026; however, Senegal has not left the CFA franc. Hello Eco...

What replaces it remains complicated. Exit without credible alternatives requires building central-bank capacity, reserve management, monetary-policy frameworks and market confidence from scratch. Countries that left earlier—Guinea in 1960, Madagascar and Mauritania in 1973—faced significant turbulence. Yet defenders must confront the system's record: the 14 CFA countries include some of the world's poorest; Niger, Chad, the Central African Republic and Burkina Faso rank near the bottom of the UN Human Development Index; per-capita GDP remains a fraction of the global average. Eighty years of promised stability have not delivered development, poverty reduction or structural transformation. The question is no longer only whether these countries can afford to leave, but whether they can afford to stay.

 

Why would-should-could all these countries remain in the CFA franc zone? 

A monetary system whose notes are printed in France, whose reserves have historically been held in the French Treasury, whose exchange rate is set by a European institution, and in which the actual users long had no meaningful say, was designed under colonialism, preserved through co-optation, coercion and violence, and maintained by institutional inertia and the complicity of local comprador elites who benefit. 

 

At no point in history has the CFA franc been closer to its demise, just coinciding with the scheduled 2027 rollout of the

Eco—the proposed new ECOWAS common currency, directly pegged to the Euro. Again. One couldn't make this up.

And it just sounds, looks, and smells as fantastic and promising as the Euro...

 

The CFA franc is a monument to the idea that independence can be granted with one hand while economic sovereignty is withheld with the other. The most effective control is not always exercised with guns and borders; sometimes it is exercised with exchange rates, reserve requirements and banknotes printed thousands of kilometers from the pockets that carry them.

 

Whether or when the CFA franc system collapses, adapts once more as the Eco, national sovereign currencies, or something else remains open. What is clear is that a reckoning is already under way across the Sahel and beyond. A new generation asks the question Sankara asked four decades ago: "If a nation does not control its own money, can it truly call itself free?"

 

Reference: 
Enrico Creta (2026) - The CFA Franc and the Mechanics of Monetary Servitude in Francophone Africa.
Alassane Dialloa Dego & Adama Bac (2024) - From French franc to euro: An economic impact for CFA franc zone countries?
Fanny Pigeaud & Ndongo Samba Sylla (2021) - Africa's Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story.

'With the Help of God Almighty,' Yemen Intensifies 'Battle of the Sacred Jihad'

Statement of the Yemeni Armed Forces Regarding the Strikes on a Number of Sensitive and Military Targets
in Southern Occupied Palestine With a Salvo of Cruise Missiles and Drones – March 28, 2026

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

The Almighty said: "And Allah will surely support those who support Him. Indeed, Allah is Powerful and Exalted in Might." God Almighty has spoken the truth.

» Our second military operation in the Battle of the Sacred Jihad 
has successfully achieved its objectives by the grace of God. «  

In continuation of supporting and backing the resistance fronts in Palestine, the land of sacrifice and redemption; Iraq, the land of glory and opposition; Lebanon, the land of dignity and steadfastness; and Iran, the land of pride, honor, and defiance, and within the framework of confronting the Zionist plan in the region, and in carrying out of what was declared in the statement of the Yemeni Armed Forces dated March 27 of this year:

Ballistic missiles from Iran, cruise missiles and suicide
drones from Yemen target I$raHell. — March 29, 2026.

Our armed forces, with the help of God Almighty and reliance upon Him, realized the second military operation in the Battle of the Sacred Jihad, using a salvo of cruise missiles and drones that targeted a number of vital and military objectives of the Zionist enemy in southern occupied Palestine. This operation coincided with the military operations being delivered by our mujahideen brothers in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and it successfully achieved its objectives by the grace of God.

Ongoing escalation—and why Yemen's entry
in the war could be a game-changer. 

The Yemeni Armed Forces affirm that, in conducting their religious, moral, and humanitarian duties toward the free people of the global Muslim community (al-ummah الأمة) on the fronts of jihad and resistance, and in response to the enemy’s crimes against the sons of the Ummah, its peoples, and its countries, they will continue—by God’s help and reliance upon Him—to implement their military operations in the coming days until the criminal enemy ceases its attacks and aggression.

God is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs; the best protector and the best supporter.

Long live Yemen—free, proud, and independent.
Victory to Yemen and to all the free people of the Ummah.

Sana’a, 9 Shawwal 1447 AH

Corresponding to March 28, 2026.

Quoted from:
Brigadier General Yahya Saree, military spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, March 28, 2026.

Boom Boom Tel Aviv—this song was 

promised to I$raHell 3,000 years ago.

See also:

Stanislav Krapivnik (March 27, 2026) - No Energy, No Food: Global System Breakdown Begins.

 

After Maduro, Might Makes Right | Alexander Dugin

What does the kidnapping of the president of a sovereign country mean? Like in the era of barbarian kingdoms, Maduro was brought in and paraded through the streets of New York like a captive enemy for the amusement of the crowd. Many note that this is reminiscent of Rome in its twilight years.

 » "Reshuffling of the deck" and global conflict. The world will never be the same again. «

 

[...] And what does all this mean? [...] International law no longer exists. Appealing to the UN, asking the West to pay attention to violations of certain principles, agreements, or provisions that contradict the letter and spirit of the law — all of this is now completely futile. 

 

[...] The idea that there are certain norms and rules that can be negotiated should be left in the past once and for all. There is no international law. There is only the law of force. In a sense, it has always been this way — this is nothing new. It’s just that, at certain times, after each "reshuffling of the deck" and global conflict, when spheres of influence are redistributed, the great powers assert their right to sovereignty.  

 

» International law is always a balance of power between the victors. « 

This was the case in the First and Second World Wars. When fascist Europe became a separate entity in world politics, it demanded that the world submit to it. The world rebelled, and that power is no more. But any international law is always a balance of power between the victors. That’s the point. For more than a century, nation-states have not been sovereign actors establishing world order; world relations are shaped by ideological blocs.

[...] Trump said nothing conceptually new, but he de facto scrapped the Yalta peace, the bipolar system, the UN, and even the very idea of globalization hitherto. His position is simple: "My interests are the interests of the world hegemon. Obey me." 

 

 » In the end, these infamous and lost thieves, like wretched fruit hanging from this tree... « 

The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot, 1633.

 

In fact, humanity is now in a state of fundamental humiliation. Trump simply called a spade a spade. Globalists used to soften this humiliation by pretending to listen to your opinion and allowing you to participate in the process. Now that multilateralism is over, only the right of force remains, and this is an irreversible process. The world will never be the same again.

We are in the midst of a protracted, long-running Third World War, where international law simply does not exist. It will exist sometime in the future, based on the outcome of this conflict. [...] Trump is casting an arrogant challenge: "If you are winners, then win. Like me, for example. Where is your Zelensky?" 

 

 » If you are winners, then win. Where is your Zelensky? «

 

From this point of view, only when you parade Zelensky, the terrorist Malyuk, the terrorist Budanov, or Zaluzhny through Moscow in a cage, and the crowd of "Russian Romans," the inhabitants of the Third Rome, shout "shame, murderers" at them, only then will they talk to you. Perhaps on some holiday: Labor Day or Friendship of Peoples Day. Only then will we be accepted into the club of great powers. But for now, no. We are trying to convince Trump with documents that hundreds of Ukrainian drones wanted to destroy the Russian president, and the response we get is something like, "I don’t believe it. First, you set it up yourselves; second, it’s a pity it didn’t work out; and third, I know that we sent them so that your life wouldn’t be too sweet."

[...] We must defend ourselves in the war with the West, because that is where the initiative to revoke our right to sovereign policy comes from. It is time to abandon illusions about "Western partners" or "shared values." Trump is right to drop the mask of hypocrisy and nonsense about human rights: for him, America comes first. We are in a shootout: shoot or you will be killed. Trump did not even start World War III — he simply confirmed its existence.

» In this game without rules, Russia must win by any means necessary. «

 

[...] Only war decides everything — that’s the issue. And here the question of resources arises. Apparently, we are much better off with them than we thought: over four years of war, the people have demonstrated an incredible will for sovereignty. But now, in Ukraine, the question is not about the use of sovereignty, but about its acquisition. So far, it is not enough. Sovereignty is when you draw red lines and punish those who cross them. And when we demonstrate the Burevestnik, Poseidon, or Oreshnik, but nothing happens, it ceases to count in this world of shows and short cycles.

We have put everything at stake — the existence of Russia and our people — to prove our sovereignty. [...] In this game without rules, Russia must win by any means necessary. There are no taboo topics: we can abolish the Constitution, declare a state of emergency, do away with all conventions, and do whatever is necessary to survive. If we observe propriety and lose, it will not count in our favor. But if we succeed, no matter what, the victors will not be judged. Only the defeated are judged: if we slip up, they will hold a new Nuremberg trial over us.

» Tremble, nations, and submit, for God is with us. «  

 

This is the seriousness of 2026: it is a year of war and extraordinary measures. Peaceful life is being completely erased, like a wet rag wiping outdated formulas off a blackboard. Everything we counted on no longer works. We are in a cowboy saloon where a shootout is taking place without rules or regulations.

 

 [...] Now, thanks to Trump and his new doctrines, the situation has changed. Trump says, "I will conquer you all, I will shoot without warning." And look what he’s doing: he really is shooting. [...] We must act just like the strongest players — the West or Trump. Do as Trump does, but with completely different content, goals, and objectives. 

 

» There is no other way out. «

 

Methodologically, there is no other way out. China has achieved its goals through economics, but in a military confrontation, the question remains open: the Chinese are not the most warlike people, and there is a huge pro-Western elite there. We have not been able to compete economically, but our strengths are warrior bravery, courage, and faith. God is on our side: "Tremble, nations, and submit, for God is with us."

Quoted from:
Alexander Dugin (January 7, 2026) - After Maduro, Might Makes Right: Trump Sets the New Terms of Sovereignty.

 

 » The era of redrawing maps of influence. EU is "carefully monitoring." «

Went from scramble for Africa to scramble for Europe and Latin America real quick.

 

Neolib Zionist supremacist Jake Tapper (CNN host) and neocon Zionist supremacist Stephen Miller (Trump's

Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy), fighting over how to execute the takeover of Venezuela, January 5, 2026.