Caisse Centrale de la France Libre
The Caisse Centrale de la France Libre (CCFL, lit. 'Central Bank of Free France') was a bank of issue established by Free France in Brazzaville in 1941, serving French Equatorial Africa and Cameroon following their de facto secession from Vichy France. It soon evolved into a specialized note-issuing and development bank for French overseas territories and was renamed the Caisse Centrale de la France d'Outre-Mer (CCFOM, lit. 'Central Bank of Overseas France') in early 1944, then the Caisse Centrale de Coopération Économique (CCCE, lit. 'Central Fund for Economic Cooperation') in 1958.
It was the predecessor institution of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), the Institut d'Émission des Départements d'Outre-Mer (IEDOM), the Institut d'Émission d'Outre-Mer (IEOM), and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD).
Overview
[edit]The CCFL was created by an ordinance of Charles de Gaulle on 2 December 1941 in London. The institution's role was defined as bank of issue and public treasury. The ordinance of 2 December 1941 gave the fund the responsibility for "issuing and taking charge of banknotes in the territories of Free France", later complemented with foreign exchange controls (ordinance of 24 July 1942).[1]
Following the takeover of French North Africa in November 1942 (Operation Torch), the French Committee of National Liberation was formed in June 1943 and formally succeeded Free France. It initially relied on the note-issuing infrastructure of the Banque de l'Algérie and leveraged it, for example, during the liberation of Corsica in October 1943.[2] In early 1944, Finance Minister Pierre Mendès France correspondingly repurposed the CCFL towards financing economic and social development of the French overseas territories, and had it renamed it the Caisse Centrale de la France d'Outre-Mer (CCFOM) by ordinance of 2 February 1944.[3] Even so, the CCFOM was still the bank of issue for some of France's overseas territories, including French Equatorial Africa. That region's currency was standardized in late 1945 as the CFA Franc.[4]
In 1955, the French government transferred the CCFOM's monetary role in French Equatorial Africa to a new entity, the Institut d'Émission de l'Afrique Équatoriale Française et du Cameroun, which in 1959 was renamed the Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique Équatoriale et du Cameroun (BCEAEC) and later became the BEAC.[4] Meanwhile, CCFOM changed its name to Caisse Centrale de Coopération Économique (CCCE) in 1958. Its residual monetary mandates were gradually taken over by two public institutions, the IEDOM established in 1959 and the IEOM established in 1967. In 1992, the CCCE was renamed the Caisse Française de Développement, and in 1998, Agence Française de Développement.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ 70 ans d'engagement pour le développement. De la caisse centrale à l'AFD, Agence Française de Développement and Cliomédia, October 2011, 223 p. (ISBN 2909522326), pp. 22–27
- ^ "Les billets de la Banque d'Algérie surchargé TRESOR 1943 (1943-1945)". Numizon.
- ^ "Caisse centrale de la France libre". Bibliothèque nationale de France.
- ^ a b "Histoire de l'Emission Monétaire en Afrique Centrale". beac.int.
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