Even though the devaluation of the metropolitan franc and the creation of the colonial francs could be seen as positive signs, the principles proclaimed by Pleven were far from being motivated by the 'generosity' of the French government. To begin with, the parity of the CFA franc had been set without taking into account the specificities of the different colonial blocks. During the war, inflation had been more pronounced in the AOF than in the AEF. If the French authorities had really wanted to 'take into account the interests' of each territory, they would have had to create two different currencies, one for the AOF and other one for the AEF, and to assign to each of them a different parity, in line with their respective economic situations. But that's not what they did. Worse still, Paris gave the CFA franc an excessive value – as mentioned, a CFA franc bought 1.70 French francs – that was incompatible with the economic strength of the AOF and AEF, onto which a highly overvalued currency was imposed.

Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa's Last Colonial Curr…, loc. 76