Senegal’s new president Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a 44-year previous former tax inspector, has promised to take the nation out of the West African CFA franc, a foreign money pegged to the euro — and seen by many as a relic of French colonialism.
At his formal swearing-in ceremony on Monday (2 April), Faye stated his election pointed to “a profound need for change”.
Former president Macky Sall, who didn’t stand within the elections having served two phrases, had been an ally of France.
However Sall’s resolution to postpone presidential elections, which had been due in late February till December, prompted a wave of public protests, amid fears that Senegal might fall to autocracy.
Insiders say there may be reduction in Paris and different European capitals at Sall’s exit and the peaceable switch of energy.
And the top of the EU’s election remark mission in Senegal, Swedish left-wing MEP Malin Björk, praised the presidential polls as a “well-organised and open election that demonstrated the power of Senegal’s democratic establishments”.
“On the entire, the election was nicely organised. Voters have been in a position to make their selection freely in a peaceable and orderly ambiance,” she stated.
However the query stays whether or not Faye, who was swept to energy with the overwhelming help of younger voters on a platform of job creation, extra state intervention within the economic system, and renegotiating minerals contracts, will take a confrontational strategy to France and the EU.
Senegal borders Mali, considered one of a handful of West African states to have seen a navy coup in recent times.
France, and the broader EU, have been bruised by their lack of affect within the Sahel area on account of the coups, and Russia is amongst different actors to have capitalised on anti-French sentiment, notably amongst younger francophone Africans.
The coups mirrored “an express rejection of France … and the EU has been perceived as supporting France,” Gilles Olakounlé Yabi, government director of the West Africa Citizen Suppose Tank (WATHI), informed the European Parliament in January.
French newspaper Le Monde described Faye’s election as “a wake-up name to Western nations like France, which at the moment are in competitors with many different powers.”
The French day by day added that France and others “should be taught from the results of the present African context, which has more and more come to resemble a brand new part within the lengthy historical past of decolonisation.”
French president Emmanuel Macron congratulated Faye on X, previously often known as Twitter, earlier than he had formally been declared the winner, providing to “proceed and intensify” hyperlinks between their nations. EU international affairs chief Josep Borrell additionally shortly provided congratulations.
Faye, in the meantime, has stated that Senegal will stay a “sure and reliable ally”, however that it wanted to “win extra” from its relationship with Paris.
The EU has been in talks with Sall’s authorities for greater than a yr on a proper migration administration programme, following a spike within the variety of Senegalese and different Africans making an attempt to cross to Spain.
And consultants say that it will be a mistake to contemplate Faye as as a radical risk to Senegal’s European relations.
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Paul Melly, a consulting fellow with the Africa Programme on the British Chatham Home think-tank, informed EUobserver that “each side might be fairly pragmatic”.
“After the bruising expertise [of the military coups] … it is in each nations’ pursuits to be shut companions,” Melly added, declaring that Macron’s officers had been involved with Ousmane Sonko, the chief of Faye’s Pastef get together, final yr.
“Paris will pay attention to the significance that Faye is putting on ‘respect’ in Senegal’s future relations with worldwide companions,” Melly stated.
Foreign money reform
With regards to foreign money reform and discuss of shifting on from the CFA franc, Faye has stated the perfect answer can be to take Senegal into the eco — the proposed all-West Africa single foreign money, which is meant to be launched in 2027 — however Faye himself admits that appears a way off.
Melly pointed to Macron’s speech in Ouagadougou in 2017, by which the French president stated that if West African states wished to reform their frequent foreign money, France would help it.
“That amounted to France saying it does not have a vested curiosity within the foreign money hyperlink … regardless of what younger Senegalese may say,” Melly informed EUobserver.
Reform of the CFA franc started in earnest following Macron’s speech, piloted by Ivory Coast’s president Alassane Ouattara, and has made important progress.
Two of Ouattara’s proposals have already come into fruition. France has withdrawn its members from the boards of West African Financial and Financial Union establishments and scrapped the requirement that member states deposit half their international trade reserves in Paris to underpin the assured peg to the euro.
Ouattara desires to take care of the mounted parity hyperlink for now, and has mooted a transfer to a foreign money basket additionally together with the greenback and maybe different worldwide currencies as an interim step.
Renaming the foreign money because the eco — as a part of a long-term transfer to a typical foreign money shared by the Financial Neighborhood of West African States — has not but occurred.
Discussions on a typical central financial institution and customary financial coverage guidelines are at an early stage.
International locations leaving or calling for the scrapping of the CFA franc wouldn’t have any implications for eurozone members.