Unequal exchange between France and Africa’s CFA zone: monetary dependency and imperialist appropriation

The material prosperity of the global North relies on the appropriation of labour and resources from the global South through unequal exchange. While recent empirical research demonstrates this general pattern, little has been done to assess how it operates in the case of specific neocolonial arrangements. Here we focus on Françafrique, the long-standing neocolonial relationship between France and its former colonies in the African CFA zone. Using the environmentally extended multi-regional input-output model Eora, we quantify the flows of embodied energy, materials, labour, land and water between France and the CFA zone over the period 1990-2015. Our findings reveal clear patterns of unequal exchange, with France appropriating large quantities of resources from the CFA zone, particularly land, water and materials. We discuss the extent to which this appropriation may be enabled by France’s control over currency and monetary policy in Africa through the CFA system. Finally, we find that other major Eurozone economies also net-appropriate large quantities from the CFA zone, more intensely than the UK, US and other core states outside the Eurozone do, apparently benefitting from the Françafrique arrangement. By contrast, China and India have much lower appropriation from, and a more reciprocal relationship with, the CFA zone.