The 1972-1973 reform only cosmetically Africanised the franc zone while keeping French veto power

Evidence

Between December 1972 and December 1973 some changes were made to the functioning of the franc zone, as promised by Georges Pompidou. In Central Africa, Chad, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and the Central African Empire signed a monetary cooperation convention on 22 November 1972 and adopted the statutes of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), which succeeded to the BCEAEC. The following day, they concluded a monetary cooperation agreement with France and the chairman of the BEAC board of directors signed an agreement on the operations account with the French Ministry of Finance. A year later, on 14 November 1973, the member countries of the WAMU – Ivory Coast, Dahomey, Upper Volta, Niger, Senegal and Togo – did the same: they too adopted a new monetary treaty and a new statute for the BCEAO. On 4 December, they signed a monetary cooperation agreement with France and a convention establishing the opening of an operations account (the agreement was signed by the president of the Council of Ministers of the WAMU). The headquarters of the central banks were transferred to the African continent, to Yaoundé (Cameroon) in 1977 for the BEAC and to Dakar (Senegal) in 1978 for the BCEAO. The central banks were now required to deposit ‘only’ 65 per cent of their currency reserves at the French Treasury instead of the totality of the reserves. They also had the option of granting overdrafts to their national treasuries up to 20 per cent of the tax revenues of the previous year. As for the French representation on the boards of the central banks, it was revised downwards: Paris now only had one seventh of the votes compared to the third it previously held. Nonetheless, it retained its right of veto. This process took the name of ‘Africanisation’ of the institutions of the franc zone. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 183

Categorization

• SEED: An article angle: the ‘Africanisation’ that relocated bank headquarters but retained French veto — reform as symbolic relocation of power.
• XREF: connects to: France only concedes monetary reform when African pressure threatens its position — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 336; Paris devalued the French franc unilaterally without consulting African states

Related

• Paris devalued the French franc unilaterally without consulting African states (similarity 0.84)
• France retains a veto over essential BCEAO and BEAC decisions via voting rules (similarity 0.83)
• France granted African states nominal monetary rights while denying them in practice (similarity 0.82)
• The CFA system requires African central banks to deposit half their reserves with France. (similarity 0.81)
• France’s guarantee is backed by pooled African reserves and French central bank seats (similarity 0.81)
• African criticism did not alter no French control of the CFA system. (similarity 0.81)
• The 2019 reform preserved French monetary control behind cosmetic changes (similarity 0.81)
• African states bore French franc devaluations without being consulted, violating the monetary agreements. (similarity 0.81)
• France only concedes monetary reform when African pressure threatens its position (similarity 0.80)
• African leaders and researchers were sidelined while France and allied presidents dictated policy (similarity 0.80)
• African central banks must deposit half their reserves at the French Treasury (similarity 0.80)
• The 1962 WAMU treaties renamed the CFA franc while keeping French control (similarity 0.80)
• France can veto CFA central bank decisions and the ECB sets policy (similarity 0.79)
• France relaxed reserve requirements only under pressure from a defiant member state (similarity 0.79)
• Portugal replicated France’s currency cooperation model with Cabo Verde. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• France only concedes monetary reform when African pressure threatens its position #corroborates (0.75) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 336
• Paris devalued the French franc unilaterally without consulting African states #expands (0.50)