Making sense of west Africa’s new currency

MONETARY POLICY, done well, is meant to put everyone but economists to sleep. Yet in west Africa it has pulled thousands of protesters onto the streets. Many locals have long objected to the west African and central African CFA francs, two monetary unions pegged to the euro and backed by France. This arrangement has delivered low inflation and currency stability to the 14 African countries that use one or other of the CFA francs. But critics call the CFA a relic of past subjugation and absurdly portray it as a “colonial tax” imposed by France, the former power.