Nowadays, the French government says that the CFA franc has become an 'African currency' run by the Africans themselves; however, as we will see in the following pages, this statement deserves to be seriously called into question. For sure, the design of the banknotes and the staff of the central banks have been 'Africanised': Marianne and the 'heroic figures' of imperial France have been replaced by savannahs and African national monuments. But these clichés conceal a very different reality: to this day, the coins and notes used daily by the Africans of the franc zone continue to be manufactured in the former metropole, and specifically in the department of Puy-de-Dôme, and in Pessac, in the department of Gironde.

Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa's Last Colonial Curr…, loc. 45