The CFA franc was a colonial instrument depriving African actors of credit.

Evidence

The CFA franc, for Pouemi, was a ‘chimera’, ‘a creature of the French state’, just like the French franc, and it represented a purely political and uneconomic choice as a result of which the future of today’s and tomorrow’s Africans was sacrificed on the altar of the past. According to the economist, the CFA franc was an instrument of colonial economic development: it was not designed to stimulate the growth of African productive forces. It was rather a system that deprived access to credit all those African economic actors who did not adapt to the model of colonial accumulation based, on the one hand, on the production of raw materials for export and, on the other, on the consumption of goods imported from the metropole. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 192 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The functioning of the banking system of the franc zone also served to orient the allocation of resources in such a way as to further benefit the metropole and its operators: bank credit was mainly reserved for those sectors whose products were exported to the metropole and generated foreign currency, to the detriment of productions destined for national markets. … Because of this handicap, associated with other non-monetary barriers such as the lack of infrastructure and trade protection, African companies often found themselves in the position of not being able to compete with foreign economic operators on their national markets. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 128 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Ultimately, we are in the presence of a mechanism that defies belief: France uses its presumed role of ‘guarantor’ as a pretext and as a tool to blackmail its former colonies in order to keep them in its orbit, both economically and politically, as we will see in Chapters 4 and 5. Worse, the African states not only guarantee the convertibility of the CFA franc with their own reserves, but continue, in fact, to ‘guarantee’ France’s leading position in the global economy, by accruing important benefits to its economy. All the foundations of the CFA system are based on a mug’s game. Therefore, it is not surprising that African leaders, following their countries’ independence, immediately mobilised against the CFA franc. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 146 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Nkrumah warned in 1963 that foreign-backed currencies subordinate African states; The CFA franc’s real purpose was draining colonial wealth to France.; France granted African independence only as a conditional package tied to cooperation agreements. (+14 more)

Related

• The CFA franc was a political choice that deprived non-adapting African actors of credit (similarity 0.95)
• African deputies publicly exposed the CFA franc as a tool of the colonial pact (similarity 0.93)
• The CFA franc structurally denied credit to economic actors outside colonial accumulation (similarity 0.92)
• The CFA franc’s real purpose was draining colonial wealth to France. (similarity 0.92)
• The CFA guarantee arrangement secretly benefits France at Africa’s expense (similarity 0.91)
• CFA convertibility guarantee is cheap only because African economies stay small. (similarity 0.91)
• CFA franc’s real aims were draining colonial wealth into France, not African progress. (similarity 0.90)
• Franc-zone bank credit allocation suppressed African firms competing with French companies (similarity 0.90)
• The CFA franc’s parity was set without regard for local economic realities (similarity 0.89)
• The French guarantee of the CFA franc was illusory since African reserves exceeded debts (similarity 0.89)
• France’s guarantee is backed by pooled African reserves and French central bank seats (similarity 0.89)
• The CFA franc is the central weapon of Françafrique’s neocolonial domination (similarity 0.88)
• The CFA franc persists because French and African elites both profit from it (similarity 0.88)
• The CFA system blocks African countries from financing their own agricultural development (similarity 0.88)
• The CFA franc functions as a political instrument of pressure over 15 African states. (similarity 0.87)

Broader Connections

• The CFA franc was a political choice that deprived non-adapting African actors of credit #corroborates (0.95) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 192
• Franc-zone bank credit allocation suppressed African firms competing with French companies #exemplifies (0.80) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 128
• The CFA guarantee arrangement secretly benefits France at Africa’s expense #expands (0.70) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 146
• France introduced the CFA franc to several African colonies in 1945 #expands (0.60) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 23