Through the foot that it retains in the African institutions of the franc zone and beyond, Paris effectively takes all the important decisions regarding the CFA and Comorian francs, often without even informing the concerned states in advance. An example of this is the devaluation of the French franc in December 1958, on the eve of the independence process, and again in August 1969. These unilateral decisions forced the African countries to undertake a heavy adjustment in order to maintain the parity with the French franc, and had serious negative repercussions in the African countries, including an increase in the cost of living, especially in the cities, as well as in the value of their foreign debt. In 1994, a similar decision had even more dramatic consequences: against the opinion of the majority of African leaders, France decided to devalue the CFA francs by 50 per cent, thus altering their parity with the French franc for the first time in 46 years.

Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa's Last Colonial Curr…, loc. 204