France ran nearly 40 military interventions across Africa between 1960 and 1991
Evidence
France chose to resort to force. It did so while the Ivorian administration began to take steps to create its own national currency and bring the Ivory Coast out of the franc zone, the only way to get around the BCEAO’s financial embargo (the central bank continued to refuse to supply banknotes to its Ivorian agencies). In 2018, a senior Ivorian officer in office at that time explained the measures taken to address what he called the ‘boa constrictor of the French government’. ‘The cuts, the physical appearance of our currency had been completed’, he says. ‘We had decided to maintain the same nominal value as the CFA franc in order not to destabilise the population too much. The notes and coins would have been produced by a foreign country. We were negotiating with a friendly African country, who had agreed in principle to manage our foreign currency account until our central bank was operational. We were at an advanced stage in our new policy of monetary cooperation when France, certainly aware that it risked losing the Ivory Coast, launched its final assault. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 273 (
#exemplifies, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: African leaders and researchers were sidelined while France and allied presidents dictated policy; France used military force to prevent the Ivory Coast from leaving the franc zone. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 273
Related
- France used military force to prevent the Ivory Coast from leaving the franc zone. (similarity 0.92)
- France’s soft monetary power over the CFA system depends on hard military power. (similarity 0.83)
- Ivory Coast was creating its own currency when France launched its 2011 assault (similarity 0.82)
- France treated monetary and military pressure as interchangeable weapons. (similarity 0.82)
- France used the BCEAO Central Bank to paralyze a targeted African government (similarity 0.82)
- African leaders and researchers were sidelined while France and allied presidents dictated policy (similarity 0.81)
- France’s punitive treatment of Mauritania deterred Niger and Chad from leaving the franc zone. (similarity 0.81)
- French pressure succeeded because Gbagbo was politically isolated after the 2002 partition (similarity 0.80)
- France has maintained and reinforced its Abidjan military base since colonial times (similarity 0.80)
- The CFA franc gives France instruments to control the politics of 15 African states. (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- France used military force to prevent the Ivory Coast from leaving the franc zone.
#exemplifies(0.80) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 273