A French finance ministry lobby defends the CFA system for investor profits.

Evidence

According to a senior official cited in 2010 by the weekly Jeune Afrique, at the French Ministry of Finance there exists ‘a powerful lobby close to French investors in Africa (Bouygues, Total, Bolloré, CFAO…) for which the removal of this system would lead to a serious decline in earnings’. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 257

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the wider thesis of the book about the French state-business nexus upholding the franc zone. — connects to: The CFA franc functions as a political instrument of pressure over 15 African states.; The CFA guarantee arrangement secretly benefits France at Africa’s expense — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 146; French Treasury supervision is the backbone of the CFA system’s operations — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 111

Related

• The CFA guarantee arrangement secretly benefits France at Africa’s expense (similarity 0.86)
• The CFA system gives France instruments to steer franc-zone politics (similarity 0.84)
• The CFA franc persists because French and African elites both profit from it (similarity 0.84)
• The CFA franc persists because French and African elite interests both benefit. (similarity 0.83)
• The CFA central banks violate their own strict controls when serving French interests. (similarity 0.83)
• Even French official bodies openly acknowledge the franc zone serves French influence. (similarity 0.82)
• The French guarantee of the CFA franc was illusory since African reserves exceeded debts (similarity 0.81)
• Most Togolese believe the CFA franc mainly serves French interests (similarity 0.81)
• French Treasury supervision is the backbone of the CFA system’s operations (similarity 0.81)
• The CFA franc’s real purpose was draining colonial wealth to France. (similarity 0.81)
• Criticizing the CFA franc publicly risked dismissal from official posts (similarity 0.81)
• CFA convertibility guarantee is cheap only because African economies stay small. (similarity 0.80)
• African criticism did not alter no French control of the CFA system. (similarity 0.80)
• The CFA franc is a tool to preserve French dominance post-independence. (similarity 0.80)
• African deputies publicly exposed the CFA franc as a tool of the colonial pact (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• French Treasury supervision is the backbone of the CFA system’s operations #corroborates (0.60) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 111