Some African deputies of the French National Assembly had understood that this principle of automaticity made the CFA franc a currency at the service of the 'colonial pact'. During the parliamentary session of 21 June 1949, Sourou-Migan Apithy, the future president of the Republic of Dahomey, deplored the lack of autonomy of the CFA franc: 'The CFA franc is not an independent currency, but a multiple of the metropolitan franc, to the same extent that a decilitre is a multiple of the litre', he said, referring to the fact that the CFA franc at the time was stronger than the franc. 'The history of the CFA franc […] is the most eloquent demonstration of the strengthening of the colonial pact', said Gabriel Lisette, founder of the Chadian Progressive Party. The Senegalese Lamine Guèye, deputy of the SFIO (French section of the workers' international) and future president of the National Assembly of Senegal, also denounced the hypocrisy of the French Union, which on paper proclaimed the equality of rights and duties, but in practice recognised to overseas populations 'only duties and no rights'.

Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa's Last Colonial Curr…, loc. 79