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This article reexamines the 1949 monetary reform in French Somaliland, leading to the introduction of the Djibouti franc within an unprecedented institutional framework in the French colonial system.
This shift primarily responded to the need to stabilise trade and safeguard French influence in a region marked by intense geopolitical rivalries. By adopting a dollar-based currency board, the territory emerged from a persistent monetary instability while leveraging its strategic position in an area dominated by the pound sterling.
Through discreet negotiations and a rhetoric of market neutrality, French authorities secured IMF approval without relinquishing their administrative control. The episode shows that money is a geopolitical instrument as much as a technical one, and that monetary sovereignty is always the product of compromise. The dollar peg embodied a partial form of sovereignty – between dependence and autonomy – that anticipated the realignments of the post-Bretton Woods era. This trajectory also sheds light on current debates over alternatives to the CFA franc and on the ability of peripheral economies to transform structural constraints into sources of stability and legitimacy.
Introduction The monetary
