Asymmetry of Colonial Agreements and French Monetary Hegemony: Origins, Mechanisms, and Overcoming within the Alliance of Sahel States (AES)

The article analyzes the persistence of the economic dependence of the Sahel states, which continues despite their formal political independence. The author demonstrates that this situation is driven not so much by the classical laws of international trade (comparative advantage, factors of production), but rather by the operation of neocolonial institutional structures. The multilateral CFA franc monetary system and asymmetric bilateral agreements (particularly, the 1976 Franco-Chadian military agreement) are examined as the key instruments of this dependence. Using Chad as a representative example, the author identifies five specific mechanisms of economic constraints, and makes a distinction between the revision regimes (bilateral or multilateral). A quantitative assessment shows that the annual costs of the CFA franc system for Chad in 2024 amount to 3.21 % of the national gross domestic product (GDP), which is equivalent to approximately 0.63 billion USD. These costs consist of the loss of income from frozen reserves, reduced competitiveness of non-resource exports, and illicit financial flows. In response to the identified structural imbalances, the study proposes the Alliance of Sahel States as a promising alternative institutional platform capable of ensuring genuine regional economic sovereignty and gradually overcoming the state of structural dependence.