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Ivory Coast
Félix Houphouët-Boigny
1966 Proof 10 Francs 34mm (25.00 grams) 0.925 Silver (0.7435 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 1, Schön# 1
* PRESIDENT FELIX HOUPHOUET BOIGNY * 1966, Bust facing right.
REPUBLIQUE DE CÔTE D’IVOIRE 10 FRS. * UNION . DISCIPLINE . TRAVAIL *, Elephant above denomination within wreath.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
 Félix Houphouët-Boigny (18 October 1905 – 7 December 1993), affectionately called Papa Houphouët or Le Vieux (“The Old One”), was the first president of Ivory Coast, serving from 1960 until his death in 1993. A tribal chief, he worked as a medical aide, union leader and planter before being elected to the French Parliament. He served in several ministerial positions within the French government before leading Côte d’Ivoire following independence in 1960. Throughout his life, he played a significant role in politics and the decolonization of Africa.
Under Houphouët-Boigny’s politically moderate leadership, Ivory Coast prospered economically. This success, uncommon in poverty-ridden West Africa, became known as the “Ivorian miracle”; it was due to a combination of sound planning, the maintenance of strong ties with the West (particularly France) and development of the country’s significant coffee and cocoa industries. However, reliance on the agricultural sector caused difficulties in 1980, after a sharp drop in the prices of coffee and cocoa.
Throughout his presidency, Houphouët-Boigny maintained a close relationship with France, a policy known as Françafrique, and he built a close friendship with Jacques Foccart, the chief adviser on African policy in the de Gaulle and Pompidou regimes. He aided the conspirators who ousted Kwame Nkrumah from power in Ghana in 1966, took part in the failed coup against Mathieu Kérékou in Benin in 1977, was suspected of involvement in the 1987 coup d’état that removed Thomas Sankara from power in Burkina Faso and provided assistance to UNITA, a United States-supported, anti-communist rebel movement in Angola. Houphouët-Boigny maintained a strong anti-communist foreign policy, which resulted in, among other things, severing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1969 (after first establishing relations in 1967) and refusing to recognise the People’s Republic of China until 1983. He re-established relations with the Soviet Union in 1986.
In the West, Houphouët-Boigny was commonly known as the “Sage of Africa” or the “Grand Old Man of Africa”. Houphouët-Boigny moved the country’s capital from Abidjan to his hometown of Yamoussoukro and built the world’s largest church there, the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro, at a cost of US$300 million. At the time of his death, he was the longest-serving leader in Africa’s history and the third longest-serving leader in the world after Fidel Castro of Cuba and Kim Il-sung of North Korea. In 1989, UNESCO created the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize for the “safeguarding, maintaining and seeking of peace”. After his death, conditions in Côte d’Ivoire quickly deteriorated. Between 1994 and 2002, there were a number of coups, a devaluation of the CFA franc and an economic recession; a civil war began in 2002.
 Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d’Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, is a country located on the south coast of West Africa. Côte d’Ivoire’s political capital is Yamoussoukro in the centre of the country, while its economic capital and largest city is the port city of Abidjan. It borders Guinea to the northwest, Liberia to the west, Mali to the northwest, Burkina Faso to the northeast, Ghana to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) to the south. The official language of the republic is French, with local indigenous languages also being widely used that include Bété, Baoulé, Dioula, Dan, Anyin, and Cebaara Senufo. In total, there are around 78 different languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The country has large populations of the adherents of Christianity, Islam and various indigenous religions.
 Before its colonization by Europeans, Ivory Coast was home to several states, including Gyaaman, the Kong Empire and Baoulé. The area became a protectorate of France in 1843 and was consolidated as a French colony in 1893 amid the European scramble for Africa. It achieved independence in 1960, led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who ruled the country until 1993. Relatively stable by regional standards, Ivory Coast established close political and economic ties with its West African neighbours while at the same time maintaining close relations to the West, especially France. Its stability was diminished by a coup d’état in 1999 and two civil wars, first between 2002 and 2007 and again during 2010–2011. In 2000, the country adopted a new constitution.
Ivory Coast is a republic with strong executive power vested in its president. Through the production of coffee and cocoa, the country was an economic powerhouse in West Africa during the 1960s and 1970s, though it went through an economic crisis in the 1980s, contributing to a period of political and social turmoil. It was not until around 2014 that the gross domestic product again reached the level of its peak in the 1970s. In 2020, Ivory Coast was the world’s largest exporter of cocoa beans and had high levels of income for its region. In the 21st century, the Ivorian economy has been largely market-based, and it still relies heavily on agriculture, with smallholder cash-crop production being predominant.
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