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Claim: Online reports in connection with Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger’s push for economic “sovereignty” claim that France still holds 50% of these countries’ foreign exchange reserves under the CFA franc financial system. The reports further justify the Alliance of Sahel States’ (AES) plan to abandon the currency.
Verdict: Misleading. The requirement for West African CFA franc countries (including Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger of the AES) to deposit 50% of their foreign exchange reserves with the French Treasury genuinely existed, but it was abolished under reforms implemented in 2019–2020.
Full Text
As the military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger pursue a “resource sovereignty” agenda by nationalizing gold mines and uranium assets and discussing plans for a new currency to eventually replace the CFA franc, a specific financial claim continues to resurface in state-aligned and pan-Africanist media, which is, France still holds half of these countries’ foreign reserves and that this remains an active form of colonial control.
Because the reserve-deposit arrangement genuinely existed for decades, the claim carries an element of historical truth that makes it particularly persuasive. However, in current debates over the AES, historical arrangements are frequently presented as though they still govern Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger today, making it difficult for audiences to distinguish between past policy and present-day reality.
A December 2025 piece published by TRT Afrika describes the CFA franc’s reserve-deposit system as an “eighty-year historical anomaly” still in force, noting that Sahel states have decided to “turn away” from a system in which “the centralisation of African foreign exchange reserves with the French Treasury” continues today.
Parts of the article read: “This mechanism forced African states to deposit 100% of their reserves at the outset, then 65% from 1973 onwards, finally stabilising at 50% since the 2005 agreements,” saying “The decision by Bamako, Ouagadougou and Niamey to move towards a common currency marks the end of an eighty-year historical anomaly.” The article’s present-tense framing gives readers the impression that this mechanism continues to apply to Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger today.
The claim gained traction across social media after publication. TRT Afrika’s posts generated 687 views and five reposts on X and 114 Facebook reactions, while Africa Uncensored’s Facebook post, further attracted 373 reactions, 50 comments and 95 shares. The article was also republished in Nigerian Pidgin on TRT Afrika’s website, extending its reach to another audience.
This is not a new claim. A near-identical version was made by Giorgia Meloni, now Italy’s Prime Minister, in a January 2019 television interview on Italian channel La7, in which she held up a CFA franc note and said France’s demands that 50 per cent of everything that Burkina Faso exports end up in the coffers of the French treasury.’ The clip resurfaced and went viral again in November 2022, shortly after she took office, prompting renewed scrutiny. At the time, Meloni’s claim was covered by Al Jazeera and independently fact-checked by the BBC, which found her 2019 statement was already outdated when she made it, some six to seven years before the current wave of AES-aligned messaging repeats a similar framing.
The repeated appearance of this claim illustrates how a genuine historical policy continues to be invoked in contemporary political debates over France’s influence in West Africa, facilitates the spread of Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) narratives, and therefore prompts a more detailed verification.
Verification
Verifying this claim requires establishing two separate facts: (1) whether the 50% reserve-deposit requirement genuinely existed, and (2) whether it still applies to Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger today.
On the first point, the claim has a real historical basis. IMF research on the CFA franc zone (“Reserve Adequacy in the CFA Franc Zone”) confirms that CFA member states were required to deposit a share of foreign exchange reserves with the French Treasury’s “operations account”: 100% at the system’s founding in 1945, reduced to 65% in 1973, and then to a 50% ceiling, effective September 2005 for the West African central bank (BCEAO). Brookings Institution research on the CFA franc independently confirms the same 50% figure and history, and a further academic breakdown is available via the LSE Africa blog.
On the second point, whether this still applies, the record shows it does not, for the specific currency in question. There are two distinct CFA francs: the West African CFA franc (ISO code XOF), used by Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and five other countries (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Togo); and the Central African CFA franc (XAF), used by six entirely different countries (Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon), none of which are AES members.
Following a reform agreement announced on 21 December 2019 in Abidjan by French President Emmanuel Macron and Côte d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara, France’s National Assembly passed a law in May 2020 formally ending the reserve-deposit requirement for the West African CFA franc zone specifically.
This is confirmed directly by the French government’s own official Franc Zone page, which lists “abolition of the obligation to centralise exchange reserves on a financial account at the French Treasury” among the concrete, implemented terms of the reform, not an aspiration.
Pan-African news wire, Africanews, reported on the law’s ratification, stating plainly that “the Central Bank of West African States will no longer have to deposit half of its foreign exchange reserves with the Bank of France.”
The specialist Africa business publication The Africa Report confirmed the mechanics of the change and, in a follow-up report from May 2021, reported that France had begun physically transferring roughly €5 billion back to the BCEAO as the reform was implemented: concrete evidence the change was executed, not just announced.
It is important to note that the Central African CFA franc zone was not part of that 2019–2020 reform, and the 50% reserve requirement remains in place there. This is the detail most often lost in circulating claims: the reserve-deposit rule is still real, but only for a currency zone that has no overlap with the AES countries.
Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), which governs the West African CFA franc, the zone where the reserve rule was dropped. German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle published a dedicated explainer on this exact question, “Why do AES countries remain in UEMOA?” (Guézodjè, 30 January 2025), a day after the AES’s ECOWAS exit formally took effect.
The African trade-policy think tank, tralac (Trade Law Centre), independently confirms all three states remain WAEMU/UEMOA members using the CFA franc, distinct from their separate ECOWAS exit. Ecofin Agency’s December 2025 coverage of the AES’s new development bank, the BCID-AES, explicitly notes this as a “paradox”: the bank pursues financial independence while its member states remain “tethered to a currency controlled by the very regional structures it is critical of”, namely the CFA franc and its issuing bank, the BCEAO.
Senegalese monetary policy expert Thierno Thioune makes the same point in an analysis for The Conversation.
Conclusion
The claim that France still holds 50% of the foreign exchange reserves of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger is misleading.
The underlying historical fact that such a rule existed is true. West African CFA franc countries were indeed required for decades to deposit part of their foreign exchange reserves with the French Treasury, with the requirement standing at 50% before reforms.
However, that obligation was abolished for the West African CFA franc zone under reforms implemented in 2019–2020. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger all use this version of the CFA franc, meaning the reserve-deposit requirement no longer applies to them.
The 50% requirement does still exist, but only for a separate currency zone in Central Africa that has no AES members. Claims currently circulating that describe this as an active, ongoing mechanism affecting the Sahel states are describing a policy that no longer applies to them.
