the new president Bassirou Diomaye Faye no longer wants the CFA franc

The new Senegalese president has just been elected on the basis of a “rupture” plan. He promises to sever the last ties with the former French colonial power. A new monetary project, Eco, has been underway since 2019.

Among these objectives, Bassirou Diomaye Faye wishes to change currency and get out of the CFA franc. An extremely popular measure in Senegal, as in the seven other West African countries which have used since the end of the Second World War this currency of the French Colonies of Africa, CFA, then of the French Communities of Africa with the period of independence at the beginning of the 1960s. It is therefore an old currency, symbol of French supervision, and we logically understand today that the desire to separate from it is widely supported by the populations.

But changing currencies is not so simple, because after all, although the CFA has many flaws, it guarantees these countries very valuable monetary stability in the region. When a country decides to change its system, it must do so with great caution. This must not cause capital flight and not destabilize the economy with the risk of too violent a devaluation. Finally, we must not find ourselves under the tutelage of another power.

The Eco: a currency common to 15 West African countries

This debate is not new in Senegal, it has even been very concrete since 2019. Five years ago, the French government signed a document and validated the end of the CFA franc. Senegal has already embarked on a currency change through the Eco project, a currency common to 15 West African states. So Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s objective today is to accelerate the birth of the Eco. “Eco is the sub-regional currency that would integrate Nigeria, the leading African power. That means that I, a Senegalese, if I have a shoe manufacturing company with a common currency, that allows me to enter a market of 350 million consumers”declares an official of the presidential party to the information site Africa Media.

The Eco was to be launched in 2020, the Covid pushed its entry into circulation to 2022. But for two years, certain countries, like Senegal, have been wary of the conditions that Nigeria is trying to impose on them. The new head of state, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, therefore wants to relaunch the dynamics of the Eco, at the risk of coming up against Nigerian influence. If he does not succeed, the new Senegalese president says he will find another path to monetary sovereignty. So the exit of the CFA will not be the first signal that will mark the severing of ties between Senegal and France. It is more likely that President Faye will imitate his Burkinabé, Malian or Nigerien neighbors and simply start by closing the two French military bases on his territory.