If the CFA franc continues to exist, in spite of the most elementary economic and political sense, it is because a series of very powerful actors benefit from it. The franc zone contributes to maintaining a private domain for France and guaranteeing monopoly positions for French enterprises, while the French state has access to reliable sources of low-cost raw materials that it can pay for in its currency, all with the more or less active complicity of the African elites who have come to power – and remain in power – with France’s support. The anachronism of the CFA franc survives, therefore, because it satisfies both the interests of the French as well as those of the African ruling classes.

Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa's Last Colonial Curr…, loc. 360