Material exports and another method was a monopoly on exports and imports, all to the advantage of france, and then the relationship between france and African Leaders, complicit and choosing leaders and also french and us control was broken, how did that happen . You had the recent cous which were a form of pushback. Africa is going through a political turmoil. Just weeks ago, gabong witnessed the cou. It was the second former french colony in africa to face the military coup in as many months and the sixth and three years, following mari, chad, guinney, burkina faso, and most recently. La cest lindependance, larmee a libere le pays, nous sommes libres, nous avons le droit detre libre et de nous sexprimer comme on peut parce que nous nous savons pas quon peut etre libere, aujourdhui nous sommes antirench sentiments, that is due to frances dark colonial past and its neuocolonial footprints there. One of those elements is the cfa frank zone, created by france in 1945, the cfa frank was meant to control the cost of access to Raw Materials from the. Colonies and to shield frances corner from the other monetary block controlled by the uk, the sterling area. Cfa frank remains to this day, the currency in place in 14 african countries. Regardless of their independence from france decades ago. The currency is controlled by the french treasury. In practice, african countries channel more money to france than they receive in aid and have no sovereignty over their monetary policies. The currency is referred to as a tool of monetary servitude, the invisible tool of france, or in plain terms, the colonial currency, the pact between france and its former colonies was designed to ensure the deliberate underdevelopment of african nations at the expense of france. Pour avoir 500, avoir 100 francs, je suis oblige de venir. 500 500 sous le soleil aux elites et vous voyez que cest pas vraiment bien on veut de tres bonnes conditions de vie, its time now for our of media post for this Program First up the pros and cons of the cfa frank zone. This article went to say the main features of the frank zone are the fixed Exchange Rate, formerly with the french frank, now with the euro. It went. To say membership of the frank zone implies a sharing of sovereignty with france and with the other members of the monetary union. Next up we took a look at this viewer comment on the matter where uh said by the name of is it real, said the two billion dollars in assistance to niger is actually loan from the world bank to be repaid with interest. France knows how to twist the truth to make it sound like welfare. France helping fight terrorists is just an excuse to keep french troops on the ground in niger to secure. Their corporate interest, it is not in their best interest to actually drive out the terrorist. All right, next we go to a website, it asked how france continues to dominate as former colonies in africa, it said in frances former african colonies, imperialist monetary policies from paris continue to cripple domestic economies and undermine democracy. Then it said colonialism in africa wont have meaningfully come to an end until true economic soverty. Is allowed to flourish, and finally we go to another viewer comments by the name of lee to lee, it said niger is not a state in america or europe, it is in africa. The people are very poor. The country is very rich in Natural Resources. There is no electricity. The uranium generates electricity in france and europe for their industies and families. They dont care about niger. Get rid of them niger, they are like parasites draining your body from blood. All the troops must get out of niger now. Ouch, thats uh, pretty harsh when it comes to the role that france plays injer. All right, uh, its time for our first q a. Let me introduce the. Guest, we have uh charles sinkala, welcome to economic divide. So, taking a look at the cfa frank and the role that that has played, and of course the way that france executed this uh monetary system. Uh, you have the banks from africa that deposited the money into the french treasury, and of course thats a large portion of the foreign currency, which they couldnt even use as collateral amongst other things. Can you tell us more about what some have described . Be the violation of a countrys sovereignty when it comes to france and its use of the cfa frank uh in central or in western uh and Central Africa uh well thank you very much and i think we must understand the basic of the background of the francaphone countries the 14 old countries were purchased in the what we call the berlin conference in 1884 and 1885 what we call the. Auction of africa where france purchased these territories and they have owned the territories in terms of the Central Banks and they own uh you know whatever minerals or whatever that income comes from those countries. All right, thank you for that. Let me introduce our next guest now kwame ganza joins us. Kwame ganza is a director of operations at connect africa. Kwanza, welcome to economic divide. Um, the relationship between france and these african countries. Um is really incredible, i mean, im looking at for example, how it also involved uh on purpose keeping these uh countries underdeveloped, um, id like to find out from you if thats thats the case, and that would be obviously uh for uh to frances advantage, for example, forcing reliance on raw material exports and also how the french monopolized things like shipping, exports and imports and uh this system of the cfa frank was designed by france to ensure that colonialism actually prevailed, um, if thats true, then why did this these countries allow this to happen . Yeah, so there was a combination of tools that france has used, when these countries emerged uh from independence, lot of them were impoverished, and you remember they created the britain woods institutions, and the britain woods institutions were presented. As institutions which were coming to help the reconstruction of the poor countries that were emerging out of colonialism, they used a combination of tools to be able to put back these countries to to the place of subjegation, and that is the imf and world bank. If you look at africa in the 1970s, africa had a share of Global Manufacturing of up to 7 . Time now for the informas section the program. First up, we took a look at uh us poverty that has been in the news recently, the reason being that it has jumped for the year 2022 based on the records that came out, and whats alarming is that Child Poverty more than doubled, and thats the first increase in 13 years for that. Country uh some of the reasons, the expiration of pandemic programs, which are refundable tax credits and stimulus payments uh were, guess a contributing factor in that case. Our take on that, the 2021 Child Tax Credit expansion, as part of president joe bidens 1. 9 trillion dollar American Rescue plan provided parents between 250 to 300 a month per child, also in april 2023, the most recent month with available figures, 41. 9 Million People um in uh 22. 2 million households received snap benefits. Snap is a program for people who cant uh who dont have enough money for food basically and they need assistance with food and that translates to 12. 5 of the total us population, unbelievable. All right, next up, we go from the us over to europe and the euro zone in particular, where we take a look at the economy there, eers on money, supply has shrunk. And this for the first time in 13 years signals economic downturn for that zone has a whole is sliding into a recession as the august pmi numbers all turned negative, so uh the euro zone is not doing well, europe as a whole, in terms of its respective countries, also uh not showing good signs and economic indicators. Next up we went to a meeting uh by the name of g20, not by the name, a group of g20 that held this meeting over in um new delhi and india, there was a joint statement that uh was issued and included climate financing, global debt, the reform of institutions like the world bank, and also new Green Development no action plan however on global debt, the cost of living crisis, including inflation and the world energy shortages. Obviously we had to go in and put our analysis into this. The g20 started back in the year 1999 in the wake of the Asian Financial crisis, meant as a forum for finance ministers and Central Bank Governors to discuss Global Finance and economic issues. Now fast forward to 2023, the Global Economy is besieged by soring inflation, mounting debt and is fuled by climate emergency, so we ask, what good is a g20, if the 20 top economies of the world, and theyre not solving problems that in a sense are uh repeating themselves year in and year out. All right, those were the news that we picked for every news section, any suggestions that you may have, thats more important for us, do send them to us, Contact Information is coming up. Time now for the indepth section of the program. Frances control of his colonies was not something that happened recently, it has been going on for quite some time, decades really, but its monetary control through the cfa frank showed the true colors of a colonizer. That is what well be looking at in this indepth section. So lets get going. Well, it was the year 1800, in terms of the date where france forced an official Exchange Rate with the french currency, paris sought to monopolize. These circuits of production, even french armed troops were sent to markets, they forced merchants to actually accept the french currency, and internet trade taxes were demanded in france, so just one of the ways and thats the outline that you see over here. Next, lets go and take a look at the countries that france had connalized, obviously we want to see what they were. As you can see over here, its broken up into west africa and Central Africa and some of the countries that you see here, benin, cameroon, chad, congo, equatorial guine, gabon, guine bassao, we have the ivory coast, mali, niger, senegal, togo, and the Central African republic, at the count is 14 uh countries in all, and that happened uh during the date of 1930s, where those 14 countries came under the control of france, france in terms of colonizing it, now lets move to the next one, enforcing colonialism, how do they went about . Well uh in in the 1930s onwards france dominated the money supply, and these were some of the perks, for example, it used african labor uh, and then access to Raw Materials at submarket prices, those were just now a couple of examples, and then what it would do, france would actually sell the finished goods that it used in those two examples back to africa at above market prices, and this is whats called frank a freak there at the bottom, yes, thats how france as a colonizer took advantage of africa. Next up, lets go uh to the year 1945. You have the birth of the cfa frank, thats when that happened. Uh, it created those two currencies, the Central African um cfa frank, and then that would be this bank note for example from senegal, and then you had the other, which is the one from uh congo, which is the one that you see over there, so these are the two different currencies that it uh actually. Created in essence it control the monetary sovereignty of 14 nations, these 14 nations made up nearly 200 Million People. All right, now lets look at the way that they controlled uh these countries in terms of the money distribution. Now Member States deposited half of their Exchange Rate as you can see over there and went to the french treasury. These are the exchange reserves. Additionally you had another 20 that was deposited um for. Financial liabilities as it called, this meant that member state had access only to 30 of of their money, so obviously that doesnt sound like fair shake at all, especially when you have to deposit that much of your money and you dont have access to it, so thats another way that france uh exercises cfa frank monopoly. When all thats said and done, france had very cozy setup, it had 14 african countries set up to provide it with the Raw Materials as we discovered at rock bottom prices, manpower. Low wages to help it with this manufacturing, and then top of all that, it had uh these countries deposit their money a central bank, which then france turned around and generated revenues from that, you couldnt have better set. Than that. All right, let me now bring in matty, he joins us to tell us whats coming up in his section. Matty, did we leave anything out from how france controlled its colonies . Hi, kavit, there are many other ways that france is making money of its former colonies and these methods are short of stealing money, like what france does with the cfa frank money in the french treasury. I will cover that at length in the quick take section. All right, thank you for that uh, well find out more from matty obviously in his section. Now let me bring back our guest uh for our q a here, uh, we have uh charles sankala rejoining us, economic and senior researcher. Welcome back to economic divide. So um, im looking at france and how it used its uh relationships with these uh countries uh of its former colonies, that is, but in the aspect of the leaders that were chosen to be in power. Uh, there was obviously a relationship that benefited both, but were looking at how there are cues that have happened recently, one after another, gabon, niger, the av coast also uh now, the french grip appears to have been broken, i mean, why do you think these countries are rising up at this particular time . Yes, cameroon, somali, cameroon and eliteria, most of those nations has been. Infested by coditers, you know, what happens in the african continent, its a short of money, the short of currency, the short of resources in terms of the currency that they have dominated the United States of dollars, dollars and you know governments are instored by those who have interest that the United States of america, france, russia, theyve got. Companies which have got the military complex where they contract their military mechanism, part of the military budget, i think it is average of a 4060 Million Dollars budget to guarantee them that they wont be credit ts, but these are the ones who actually perpetrate and install president e. All right, thank you for that, let me bring back now uh kwamegonza, director of operations at connect africa, rejoins us. Uh kwanza, welcome back to economic divide. Um, its very interesting how were looking at uh, the respective countries recently, such as niger, such as nalgabon, and then were looking also at the ivory coast uh where um the governmentts there uh, the people basically dont want it, and you have a transition taking place, whether its to a military Transitional Government or or otherwise, but um, people are have realized that uh, the resources of the countries is not working to their benefit, france obviously had relationship with the heads of state, which benefited both, but not the people, give us your take as to why were looking at things happening at the rate they are at this juncture in time, yeah, so the i think the Financial Success is dependent on whether the government represents the the current which takes over after the one which represents the neolonial interests or the colonial interests are represent. The people, so that is where that kind of uh success will come from, a government which cares for the people, we have seen that in places like burkina faso for example, we have seen that in niger and mali so far, in gabon we are not sure, so these cours are not the same in many cases, when colonialism was abolished, various territories remained. Divided and so they remained vulnerable to that manipulation from outside and this is what our four fathers were trying to fight against when they talked about unification so that we can be able to across the franceafrica spectrum france still today controls the currency, foreign reserves, the comparador elites and trade businesses. France de facto controls the overwhelming majority of infrastructure in francophone africa. It is a virtual monopoly. Multiple french giants are operating in africa, like the french conglomerate bolares control of port and Marine Transport throughout west africa. Then theres boius vince, which dominates construction and public works, water and electricity distribution. Total has huge stakes in oil and gas and then theres frances big banking. Society general, credit leones. Bmp powerbah today with few. Has for decades made sure that there is very little interafrica trade. There have been attempts by African Leaders to get rid of french control. Back in 2019 it was announced that the west african currency would be performed and replaced by an independent currency to be called echo. However, echo would still be pegged to the euro and the burden that it implies. Neocolonialism is on the move. Look at what the uk and germany have done in africa, but let me tell you, france has to be held accountable the most for whats happening in some. African countries, europe must act now to give back to africa a prominent role. The project is, however yet to materialize, the growing unpopularity of france and africa and the younger generations rejection of his presence are no accidents. There cannot be a french, american solution to africas challenges. Hello and welcome to the quick take section, im. Posian. We want to take a look at the other ways france makes money of its former colonies. One of the ways is through the Exchange Rate from the cfa frank to the euros. Initially the cfa frank was pecked to its french counterpart a rate of 1. 7 to one, but in 1948 it was increased to two to one by overvaluing the cfa frank. Paris maintained its economic advantage by crushing africas export competitiveness, the transfer of the money to the french treasury is another way that the french government makes money of its colonies. Not only can they not use this money as collateral, sometimes they have to pay the French Central Bank just for keeping it there. We know that the cfa frank denominations are in euros, but when accounts are in credit, the african Central Banks effectively place their Foreign Exchange reserves at frances disposal, but when the Central Banks accounts. Are in debit, they are obligated to pay interest to the french treasury, in other words, cfa Member States pay france to hold to their money. There is then the question of what france does with the money that is deposited in the french treasury. There are two very realistic things that france can do, with that money pay off a portion of its debt, or invest that money a profit. The total amount deposited by the cfa zone treasuries is around 15 billion. Euros, thats half of their foreign currency reserves, and it is refundable, with Interest Rates around 1 , they could produce about 150 Million Euros at most. There are speculations that this figure could be lot more. According to this entry by a german newspaper, africa pays 400 billion euros per year to france, which said the french government collects from its former colonies each year 440. Billion euros of taxes. Finally, the exploitation of africa by france wouldnt be complete if it didnt include two important sectors, Natural Resources and then the one not that wellknown, and that is west african ports. It is no secret how african countries are rich Natural Resources like uranium, gold and oil and gas. Niger provides around 20 of frances uranium needs. Meanwhile, gibon is source of crude oil. Mouritania delivers iron or while togo and benin provide agricultural commodities. And now comes the icing on the cake. French national vince boulevard owns most of west africas major ports. It is no surprise then that former french president jack shiroq had this to say about africa. We have to be honest and acknowledge that a big part of the money in our banks comes precisely from the exploitation of the african continent. Without africa, france will slide down into the rank of a third world power. That brings us to the end of this quick take. Dont forget to send us your comments or ideas you would like to be covered in the show. Im mathi abbastian and ill see you next week. Mali, niger, gabon, berquina faso, the countries continue to topble the western allined governments opting for new rulers, which after the trans period, well theyre going to elect a leader thats going to work for the people, hopefully, using the Natural Resources of their respective countries. Now former french colonies have realized alignment with france did not bring them what they deserved. After all, they truly need to get beyond what uh means of livings they have now, a minimum, well find out if that happens. That does for this edition of the program. Thank you so much for uh tuning in to our program and for watching it, if if you have any questions, comments, we truly appreciate it if you send it to us, Contact Information is behind me. And the entire team here at economic divide, its goodbye, until the next program. The International Community became involved in mali following the adoption of a Un Resolution in 2013. Its an evil force that needs to leave our land, its been of no use, it has failed to deliver, give us few weeks and we will drive them out of the country. I love our country and i love the armed forces, i think theyre doing a good job. We want new constitution for young people in mali. It will bring peace, prosperity and stability. It means jacket, this jacket, ready, im lemotopic here on press tv, and i want you to join me for cats and dogs, the heavy show that makes light work, serious politics, thats press tv, cats and dogs, lambodopic, dont miss it. 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