IN THE EARLY 1980s, France's former colonies in West Africa appeared like islands of economic rationality and modest development in a continent of egregious economic failure and mismanagement. While Nigeria's oil binge was ending in debt and a coup d'etat and Ghana's decline seemed never ending, countries like Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Senegal seemed to have achieved some economic success, even though they had been relatively poor cousins of the rich British colonies, without their level of capital development nor their resource base. Although the Francophone countries had not, on average, enjoyed significantly higher levels of growth (some like Senegal had been in recession practically since independence), they had enjoyed lower levels of inflation, greater economic stability and access to higher levels of imports. In particular, the monetary stability ensured by the arrangements of the Franc Zone (FZ) seemed to have benefited these countries: while other countries suffered from import restrictions, exchange controls and important parallel financial markets, the franc of the Communaute Financiere Africaine (CFA) was convertible and economies in the FZ were much more open to the outside world. Convertibility seemed to encourage business confidence and attracted greater private direct investment. The CFA franc was in wide use all over west and central Africa, and had become in effect a regional currency of exchange. Several Anglophone and Lusophone neighbours of the FZ even inquired about joining the Zone, and Equatorial Guinea did so in 1985. Today, a comparison would not be nearly as flattering to the FZ. While it is certainly too early to argue that Anglophone countries have turned it around, there are signs of improvement. Nigeria's economic might is being felt by its neighbours since its 60 per cent devaluation in 1986 has made its exports competitive for the first time in a decade. Ghanaian agricultural production, after years of decline, has undergone sustained growth since 1985. The FZ on the other hand is in the midst of twin economic and political crises. Economic problems have existed of course since the first oil crisis, but have worsened considerably since 1986, with the collapse of