The assurance was given by the French Minister of Finance, Bruno Le Maire, while stressing that it was up to the member countries to decide. The CFA franc is the currency of fourteen countries in West and Central Africa. The pegging of this currency to the euro has allowed the countries of this part of Africa to have a separate currency and stable inflation on the continent. But criticism is sharp against this franc zone that deprives African countries of real monetary sovereignty. The CFA franc has a fixed parity with the euro - a very strong currency - which penalizes the countries of the CFA zone of a currency that is too overvalued. The opposite of what happened when the French franc experienced many devaluations. "The CFA franc, clinging to the euro by a fixed parity, is a currency that gives the impression of being rich," said former Togolese Minister of Planning, Kako Nubukpo. "It lowers the cost of imports, but rather than producing on your own, then you tend to import what others produce," he says. Being linked to an international currency by a fixed parity is mainly of interest to foreign investors, who can repatriate their profits, and to the urban middle classes who benefit from imports at a lower cost. "It is as if we had decided in favour of champagne importers at the expense of cotton exporters", said a head of the International Monetary Fund in 1994. It is the currency of the elites and urban middle classes who can protect their savings by placing them in the eurozone. The problem is that 65% of the population is still rural and needs a currency in line with their income. In 1994, the French government at the time agreed to halve the value of the CFA franc. The result was an immediate decline in the purchasing power of city dwellers and a revival of local production, such as cocoa and coffee. But the lack of structural reforms in African economies soon erased the beneficial effects of devaluation. The advantages of the CFA The CFA franc is an asset in terms of regional integration and monetary stability. It gives the countries that have adopted it, thanks to its fixed parity with the euro, an international credibility that other countries in the region do not have, such as the Nigerian naira or the Ghanaian cedi whose exchange rates fluctuate constantly. Paris undertakes to ensure the convertibility of the CFA franc with the euro, in return for the deposit of 50% of foreign currency assets in an account opened with the French Treasury. As the printing press is under the control of the Bank of France, the franc zone has always remained within European standards: inflation below 3% and a debt below 70% of gross domestic product. On the other hand, no country in the franc zone is able to create money according to its needs, which can slow down their economy... or their indebtedness, some will say. Some African economists propose to change the CFA franc, by unifying the two CFA francs, that of West Africa and that of Central Africa, now non-convertible. They also want to peg it not to the euro, but to a basket of currencies (euro, dollar, yuan, etc.).

In his 2012 speech in Dakar, French President François Hollande proposed that African leaders consider more active management of foreign exchange reserves deposited in the French Treasury. With less orthodox monetary policies, the countries of the franc zone could hope to fill some of their growth deficits compared to the English-speaking African country which, without a common currency, seems to have more efficient economies.