ABSTRACT
The African Financial Community (CFA – communauté financière africaine) franc is a striking illustration of the continuing colonial and post-colonial linkage between France and the franc zone, an area essentially made up of its former West and Central African colonies. This currency is particular in that it was created without any prior economic convergence between the nations which share it and that its daily use defies current transparency regulations of international monetary and financial authorities. The lack of any social control from the populations which use the currency as well as the inflexibility of its peg to the euro raise the question of its role in the continued extroversion of African economies and their weak structural growth.
