West Africans change name of currency to cut colonial ties

WEST Africa’s monetary union has agreed with France to rename its Financial Community of Africa (CFA) franc the Eco and cut some financial links with Paris that have underpinned the region’s common currency since its creation after the Second World War.

Under the deal, the Eco will remain pegged to the euro but the African countries in the bloc will not have to keep 50 per cent of their reserves in the French Treasury, and there will no longer be a French representative on the currency union’s board.

Critics of the CFA have long seen it as a relic from colonial times, while proponents say it has provided financial stability in a sometimes turbulent region.

“This is a historic day for West Africa,” Alassane Ouattara, the Ivory Coast president, told a press conference with Emmanuel Macron, his French counterpart, in Abidjan, the country’s main city.

In 2017, Mr Macron highlighted the stabilising benefits of the CFA but said it was up to African governments to determine the future of the currency.

“Yes, it’s the end of certain relics of the past. Yes it’s progress ... I do not want influence through guardianship, I do not want influence through intrusion. That’s not the century that’s being built today,” said Mr Macron.

The CFA is used in 14 African countries. However, the currency changes will only affect the West African form of the currency used by Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo – all former French colonies except Guinea Bissau.