The CFA franc, a creature of the French Ministry of Finance, was actually designed to allow France to regain control of its colonies. During the war, these had diversified their commercial relations. In 1939, 85 per cent of the AOF's exports and 74 per cent of the AEF's exports were destined for the metropole; in 1945, these figures had fallen to 56 and 47 per cent respectively. During the same period, the share of their imports met by the metropole had decreased from 64 to 23 per cent for the AOF and from 45 to 4 per cent for the AEF. However, the French economy, strongly weakened by the war, needed to regain its market share and secure the supply of raw materials once again. In this context, an overvalued CFA franc was perfectly functional to Paris's interests. The fact that its value was higher than that of the metropolitan franc made the products of the metropole cheaper. This would encourage the colonies to increase their imports from mainland France. At the same time, a strong CFA franc would have the effect of increasing the prices of colonial export products, thus making them more expensive than those of their competitors in Asia and Latin America. Therefore, in order to find outlets for their exports, the colonies would necessarily have to turn to the metropole. The trade flows of the colonies would thus be reoriented in favour of the metropole, which would benefit both in terms of exports and imports, without having to touch its foreign exchange reserves.

Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa's Last Colonial Curr…, loc. 77