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It is not being mentioned in French media, however 2024 is proving to be a year where France is being effectively evicted from its African colonial ‘possessions’ and being replaced with rather stronger leaders, often supported by their military, who have increasingly turned to Russia for support.
We have already commented on the position and French President Macron’s anger at Russia’s involvement in Niger and Mali. Mali has even gone as far as to align itself with Russia’s MIR payment system following fears that Paris might seek to disconnect the country from international finance, while Burkini Faso, Algeria and the Central African Republic are all making moves to engage with Moscow as opposed to Paris. US military involvement with a drone base in Niger has also been cancelled as Africa increasingly looks away from the West and towards Moscow for support.
The Russian military are currently overseeing the transition of military and security power in Burkino Faso, ably described by Al Jazeera here, while Algeria, as we illustrated here is significantly beefing up its security collaboration and trade with Russia.
Now, the Central African Republic (CAR) has done the same, with some 10,000 troops being trained in the CAR with the help from Russian instructors, according to CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera. He stated that “We decided that we should focus not only on military training and the like, but to cultivate a truly patriotic force that loves their country. And we are working with Russian instructors along these lines,” he said in an interview with RTVI. “We continue training soldiers. Up to now, we have jointly trained more than 10,000 young troops. This is yielding results. Naturally, we have some problems from the point of view of military infrastructure, but we are working to correct this and will fix it.”
According to Touadera, since becoming President, his actions have been guided by the need “to modernize the army and take into account new challenges.” “We initiated a lot of reforms in our defense and security forces. We reorganized the army as a garrison-type one with defense zones (military districts) so that our defense forces could defend the population right on the ground. We decided to bring them closer to people and send them to really remote areas which come under numerous attacks and are gripped by violence,” he said. “We launched a training program, began to train not only the military but also the police, gendarmery and all other agencies that are to ensure our country’s security.”
Other issues are likely to follow in a cascading effect – other African nations with old colonial ties are now reviewing the fairness of their contractual agreements with European powers – and France especially, who has remained an active player in the region in a way in which the British have not. Reports of unfair pricing, effectively enforced by French security provided under the auspices of ‘keeping the peace’ have resulted in an array of rather more ‘militant’ (in Africa, read ‘patriotic’, in France read ‘autocratic’) leaders being ushered into power amid increasing mistrust of Parisian attitudes towards them as sovereign nations.
The Unseen Fiscal Repercussions
What has not been recognised or discussed is that this trend is poised to result in a plethora of new currencies hitting the markets as African countries look to abandon the Parisian controlled ‘Central African Franc’ (CFA, pronounced ‘CEFA’ in Africa) and turn to introducing their own currencies, some for the first time.
Six countries use what is officially designated the F.CFA: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. These have a combined population of 55.2 million people and a combined GDP of over US$100 billion. Others use it as a proxy, such as Senegal.
On the French side, the guarantee provided to the CFA franc, and the assurance of its convertibility, is perceived as a vector of economic stability for the region. African critics however say true economic development for the 14 African countries that effectively use it can only be achieved if they get rid of the currency. They argue that in exchange for the guarantees provided by the French treasury, African countries channel more money to France than they receive in aid. They also argue that they have no say in deciding key monetary policies agreed to by European countries, which are members of the Eurozone with policy decided in Brussels. Some of these policies – such as the EU’s attitude towards Russia – are in direct conflict with African perspectives.
This has specific issues of interest to the BRICS, with Russia of course a key member. As we reported last week, Ethiopia – is a recent addition to BRICS and has proposed a unified BRICS currency. What is interesting here is that Ethiopia is a member of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) which includes Burundi, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. COMESA naturally has significant trade relations with the Central African nations, and crucially, a lot of experience of developing their own Central Banking systems. This means that COMESA is an important case study for the Central African F.CFA users and can lend their experience to assist the development of independent currencies for them. Backed by the substantial backing of fellow BRICS members such as China, India, and Russia, it appears that a coming evolution for Central Africa will be the rejection of the F.CFA and the establishment of at least 6 and possibly 14 currencies no longer linked in Paris, or by the European Union, to the Eurozone.
We view the emergence of a BRICS currency as a long way off. However, the emergence of a revised basket of African currencies including new sovereign-issued tender supported by the BRICS economies is a totally different animal. With these ‘new’ economies having purchasing powers running into hundreds of billions of euros, and free to set rates divorced from an effective link to the Euro, the impact on the EU-African trade flows and the redistribution of wealth can be expected to be significant. If we are correct, this will prove a significant gain for Africa and the global south – at especially French, and EU expense as the loss of colonial fiscal influence is poised to hit hard. It will also underpin Russian, India and Chinese influence in the African Continent as the region’s entire security – and financial stability switches from Europe to Asia. The French President Emmanuel Macron’s need to present a victorious summer 2024 Olympics is coming right at the time when the need to be concentrating on Africa is at its height. Paris’s distraction however is Central Africa’s – and Russia’s – territorial, and influential gain.
Further Reading
Russia & The African Continent
There is a comprehensive analysis of Russia’s involvement in Africa in our 2024 Russia’s Pivot To Asia Guide, including comprehensive details of Russia’s trade with Africa, including Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, The Sahel, Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi, Tanzania, Mozambique, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Namibia and Angola. It is a complimentary download and may be downloaded in English here and Russian here.
