"Highly anticipated" by the countries of the west african monetary Union, according to the spokesperson of the French government, Sibeth Ndiaye, the project of law enforcing the detachment of France from the currency that it has officially created in 1945, was adopted this Wednesday, may 20, in the council of ministers. This text validates the transformation of the CFA franc as well as the end of the centralization of the exchange reserves of the States of West Africa with the French Treasury. The CFA franc will become the eco, and the fixed parity with the euro will be maintained. This reform, recalled the spokesman, is the result of the cooperation agreement signed on December 21, 2019 between Emmanuel Macron and the governments of the member States of the west african monetary Union, which had announced the historic reform of the monetary cooperation between France and those african States that would lead to the end of the CFA franc. "This symbolic end had to be anchored in a renewed relationship between France and Africa, and write a new page in our history ", she said.
" It is by hearing your youth that I wanted to engage in this reform [of the franc CFA] ", had been launched by the head of the French State to Abdijan, December 21, 2019, to the sides of the ivorian president Alassane Ouattara. © LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP
on The 21st of December, eight countries in West Africa and France had decided on this major reform of the CFA franc, which is going to change its name to eco in 2020, announced the ivorian president Alassane Ouattara in the presence of the French president. The CFA franc was " perceived as one of the remnants of Françafrique ", said Emmanuel Macron.
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terms of agreement
Concretely, the central Bank of States of West Africa (BCEAO) will no longer have to drop half of its foreign exchange reserves with the Bank of France, a duty which was seen as a dependency humiliating vis-à-vis France by critics of the CFA franc. It has also been decided that the withdrawal of France of the governance bodies in which it was present. The fixed parity with the euro on the CFA franc, the future of eco, shall be maintained (1 euro = frf 655.96 CFA francs). This point is called to evolve when the common currency west african see the light of day.
For info, the reform has been negotiated throughout the second half of 2019 between France and the eight countries of the Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine (UEMOA) : Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. It does not, for the moment, the six countries of central Africa use the CFA franc, but form a currency area distinct, that of the economic and monetary Community of central Africa (CEMAC).
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