Africa: Chad Unassessed

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Numismatics B‑class Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Numismatics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of numismatics and currencies on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.NumismaticsWikipedia:WikiProject NumismaticsTemplate:WikiProject Numismaticsnumismatic B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

The introduction of the 'new Franc' is not a reevaluation of the Franc but a accounting reform. Money change name, not value. -- Ann O'nyme

I'm trying to understand the CFA franc, and I'm a bit confused. The info I have from The Standard Catalog of World Coins does not seem to match what's here. I've been looking around the web and can't find the answers. Specifically:

• French Equatorial Africa has franc coins from 1942. If the CFA franc started in 1945, is the FEA franc the same thing as the Central African CFA franc?
• French West Africa has franc coins from 1944. If the CFA franc started in 1945, is the FWA franc the same thing as the West African CFA franc?
• Madagascar has coins from 1943-1958. The Malagasy Republic has coins from 1965. This page says that Madagascar left the CFA zone in 1972 or 1973. But when did it join? The Malagasy franc page mentions the Madagascar-Comoros CFA franc which is not mentioned on this page.
• The discussion of the fact that there are two different CFA francs seems to imply that before the countries were independent, there was only one CFA franc (since after independence, they were differentiated by what CFA stood for in French, but before independence, CFA only had one meaning). From the coins though, it seems like there were two from the beginning.

Ingrid 03:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ingrid:

I added the following external link to the main page. It contains the most detailed information regarding the CFA's history that I have been able to find online. I have had to deal some with the CFA in my work, but I'm not terribly knowledgable about its history. To the best of my knowledge, I believe the Global Financial Data article to be accurate. I do know that it is accurate about the original six parts of the CFA franc. Only two now remain. So the history of the CFA franc here on Wikipedia is far from complete. I've tried in my apare time to research the history more. I'm still working on it. Initially all the colonial francs were managed in Paris by the French government. Over time, some parts of the French Empire were converted to Metropolitan francs, and the other parts were given more autonomy. Eventually, the organizations and central banks were more to Africa. Initially, the differences between the six CFA francs were nominal, because they were managed together in Paris.

You put a note on the Malagasy franc page. To the best of my knowledge, the Malagasy franc was initially the Malgasy CFA franc. It was sometimes called the Malagasy-Comoros franc because the Comoros was split off from Madagascar, but continued to use Malagasy money. I have also seen the term Djibouti CFA franc and I'm sure that other French territories like Saint-Pierre and Miquelon used the CFA franc. See the note on the left side of this page.

When I'm sure of the history, I'll add more. As a start, if someone wants to summarize the information on the www.globalfinancialdata.com website that would help. It is the best source of information I have found on the history of African currencies, but my knowledge of the matter is limited and so, I cannot judge its accuracy. SDC 07:05, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I use www.globalfinancialdata.com all the time for reference, but didn't realize that they had a page devoted to the CFA franc. That answers a lot of my questions. I'll try to incorporate the information into the CFA franc page as I have time. Ingrid 16:02, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I understand the parenthetical note in the opening sentence. 'The CFA franc (in French: franc CFA, or just franc in everyday conversation if no ambiguity is possible)...' - isn't the singular word 'franc' actually more ambiguous than a term like 'franc CFA'? It seems like the correct phrase would be something along the lines of '...just franc in everyday conversation if ambiguity is permissible...'? Probably not quite the correct phrasing either - I'm having trouble understanding what the note about ambiguity is meant to say. Nice article. Mathtinder 19:40, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What it means is that, for example, if you're in the CFA franc zone, and you want to know how muh something costs, you'd use 'franc'. Everyone would know that you meant CFA franc, and thus no ambiguity is possible (meaning there's no confusion about which franc you're talking about). Does that help? Ingrid 20:04, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see. Thanks for the clarification. Just a suggestion, but for me, 'no amibiguity is possible' suggests a situation in which ambiguity is literally impossible, whereas the article seems to be describing a situation in which a misunderstanding between the speaker/writer and the listener/reader is unlikely (because ambiguity has been minimized). Would it be correct to say something like '...(or, within the CFA zone, simply franc)...'? Or '...(or simply franc when already speaking in context of the CFA zone)...'? Cheers! Mathtinder 02:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed it to "if the context is clear", that should be unambiguous. =] —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 11:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ace, Nightstallion! That's much more immediately understandable, at least for me.  :) And I'll just say again that the original article was very helpful as well. Mathtinder 07:36, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While we're all here – was it you, Ingrid, who had plans to split the article and research the CFA franc's convoluted history en detail, or was it someone else? —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 00:02, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"100 CFA francs = 1 former French franc = 0.152449 euro"

To me this suggests that 100 CFA francs = 1 franc ancien (i.e., pre-1960 franc), but the exchange rate to the euro suggests that it is instead 1 franc noveau (i.e., post-1960 franc). Something needs to be made more clear here. (Stefan2 03:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC))[reply]

I have modified the wording to "100 CFA francs = 1 French (nouveau) franc = 0.152449 euro". I hope that this clarifies the statement.

Blair 2006-July-27

• This page needs to be split. Any questions? – Zntrip 05:21, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Support And the split is a delicate work. It must be done with the most care, with coordinated effort. --Chochopk 07:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]