Michel Sapin, Minister of Finance and Public Accounts of France, said that his country was willing to speak on this matter with the Member countries of the Franc zone.

"France is fully open to all threads. All Member countries of this monetary area are free and independent; they can request restoring the monetary agreements that bind them to France. Nothing is frozen or a taboo,” said Michel Sapin who was quoted in the Afriki Presse newspaper.

The French Minister was responding to questions from the media on the issues for African countries to remain in the Franc zone. According to the article published on the website of the newspaper, Michel Sapin, questioned the responsibility of each member country of the Franc zone to “discuss agreements which binds them to France to the monetary, financial and economic plan.”

The press conference chaired by Michel Sapin on Friday in Paris closed the second biannual meeting (after that of Bamako, Mali, in April) of the Finance Ministers of the Franc zone in the French capital.

The Minister of Finance and Public Accounts of France was accompanied by Alamine Ousmane Mey, Minister of Finance of the Republic of Cameroon, also Chairman of the departmental Committee of the Monetary Union of Central Africa (UMAC), Lucas Abaga Nchama, Governor of Banque des États de l'Afrique centrale (BEAC), Bruno Bézard, Director general of the Bank of public finances of France, Christian Noyer of the Bank of France, Tiémoko Meylet Koné of the Central Bank of African States (BCEAO) and Mzé Abbou Chanfiou of Comoros.

Stay or leave the franc Zone? It will be up to each State to decide. The Franc zone includes in addition to France, 15 African countries.

Eight of them make up the West Africa economic and Monetary Union of (UEMOA): Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. Six others are of the Central African economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC): Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad.

Recently, several voices on the continent criticized the FCFA, a currency which, for some economists, leaden the economies of the countries that use it. This meeting between the Finance Ministers of the Franc zone, awaiting the subject to be trached, rather revived the ball in the African camp.

Resolutions

This year, uncertainty over global growth, the evolution of the prices of raw materials like oil and the security situation around Lake Chad and the Sahel calls for more vigilance.

Finance Ministers of the Franc zone "stressed the need to pursue the implementation of structural reforms and programmes of diversification of economies to improve the overall resilience of economies and their ability to keep a track of stable and strong growth in the long term," says the press release issued at the conclusion of their interview.

The participants exchanged on topics as varied as climate, the capital market, the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The participants separated by accepting the invitation of the Cameroonian authorities to hold the next meeting of Finance Ministers of the Zone Franc in Yaoundé, Cameroon, next year.