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The euro’s appreciation in the 2000s has revived the debate on the future of the CFA franc. In this paper, we study how the economic fundamentals of the CFA zone interacted with the evolution of the anchor currency over the 1980-2009 period to form the CFA franc’s real effective exchange rate. We assess the respective impacts of fundamentals and euro trends on CFA franc misalignments and hence on the price competitiveness of the region and its constituent countries. Relying on recent panel cointegration methods, we identify three episodes in which the anchor currency and CFA-zone fundamentals have had relatively differing effects.