Mali’s Goita Accuses France Of Printing Counterfeit CFA Francs In Repeat Of 1960 ‘Operation Persil’

Mali’s transitional President, Colonel Assimi Goïta, has accused the French government of attempting to destabilise the country’s economy by injecting counterfeit CFA franc notes into circulation.

Goïta disclosed this on Saturday during a keynote speech delivered at a stadium in Sikasso, Southern Mali. According to him, this is one of several destabilisation attempts Mali has suffered at the hands of the French government since the 2021 coup d’état that ousted the French-aligned former President Bah N’daw.

It will be recalled that after the coup, Goïta’s junta also broke off military relations with France in 2022, citing the failure of the 8-year ‘Operation Barkhane‘, after which closer ties were developed with the Russian military.

Goïta stated that following the ECOWAS border blockade and economic sanctions imposed on Mali in 2022, France printed fake CFA banknotes and tried to inject the counterfeit notes into circulation in an attempt to create a currency crisis in the cash-oriented Malian economy.

“They [France] tried twice by road to inject the counterfeit CFA banknotes, and we were able to seize all of them. Then they tried again by air to inject another set of counterfeit notes, and we seized it again,” Goïta said, adding that tightening security measures at the country’s various entry points is one of his government’s priorities.

Due to the ECOWAS sanctions, Goïta added, Mali has been forced to turn to Guinea for access to maritime trade, but according to him, Malian cargoes are charged 3 times the normal fees for using the French-controlled Guinean ports, which has added to the country’s economic burden.

“All that was done to prevent Mali from using the Guinean port,” he said, terming it “Economic Terrorism.” Going further he said,

“There are three types of terrorism, namely: armed, media (assassination of character), and economic terrorism.”

West Africa Weekly gathered that the French conglomerate Bolloré, which recently won a 25-year concession for the container terminal at the port of Cotonou, also has a similar port concession at Guinea’s port of Conakry. This means that – on paper – the port operator owned by French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, indeed has the ability to set discretionary maritime prices for Malian cargoes.

Vincent Bolloré, it will be recalled, was recently indicted in France on corruption charges relating to how these port concessions were obtained. Prosecutors allege that Bolloré paid bribes to public officials in Benin and Guinea, and worked on the political campaigns of presidential candidates who subsequently went on to award his company the port concessions after winning their elections.

It will be recalled that France is known to have previously carried out a similar covert destabilisation plot against one of its ertswhile African colonies following a diplomatic dispute. The infamous ‘Operation Persil‘ of 1960 was a French intelligence-led destabilisation operation in Guinea, which caused hyperinflation in the newly independent country by flooding it with counterfeit Guinean franc notes printed in Senegal and smuggled into the country.

Planned by the French foreign counter-espionage agency, Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE), and executed from an operational base in Senegal, Operation Persil was activated following the Ahmed Sékou Touré administration’s decision to launch a Guinean central bank and withdraw from the French-backed CFA currency union.

On more than one occasion, Goïta has publicly proposed replacing the CFA franc, which he has described as a colonial currency.

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Mayowa Durosinmi

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M. Durosinmi is a West Africa Weekly investigative reporter covering Politics, Human Rights, Health, and Security in West Africa and the Sahel Region

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