Convinced that Guinea would choose independence and fearing that it would later appropriate the monetary reserves of the BCEAO's agency in Conakry, France ordered its army to discreetly evacuate the reserves from the country. The order was executed the same day by sea. The result of the referendum in Guinea was unequivocal: as Paris had anticipated, 95 per cent of voters rejected the idea of joining the Community.

Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa's Last Colonial Curr…, loc. 150