So about the article's main point, the "colonial tax". I am not particularly knowledgeable about this but I speak French and while I didn't find any serious content (ie not articles that look like chain mails) in English on Google on that subject, there was some in French.

This "tax" refers in fact to the obligation for central banks of the "franc area" (ie countries that use CFA francs) to deposit part of their currency reserves in France, in a shared pool of reserves. The way I got it, the purpose of this is that poorer countries' credit is guaranteed by France's monetary stability, so it actually benefits other countries. One thing that stands out is that those deposits are still owned by the original central banks, rather than France. If they were to leave the franc area, they would simply get them back. France cannot use those deposits for any purpose. The article make it sound like money goes from African governments to the French government : this is false ; money goes the other way through development aid.

The newly “independent” countries should pay for the infrastructure built by France in the country during colonization.

I still have to find out the complete details about the amounts, the evaluation of the colonial benefits and the terms of payment imposed on the african countries, but we are working on that (help us with info).

Here the author admit they have no idea what they're speaking about. Neither do I, to be honest. So let's keep to currency reserves.

I have been skimming through the French-speaking Internet about this and I found various far-left pages or more serious debates that criticise the CFA franc for various reasons (mostly, that West African countries' monetary policy is decided in Paris, or rather in Frankfurt now that the Euro exists). None of them mention this currency reserves issue in their criticism. You'd think actual economists would mention it if it were a problem, so I think we can safely say than it's not. The article has certainly been exaggerating the secrecy of this (it is in fact mentioned quite matter-of-factly on various more serious websites like Wikipedia) and the amounts.

About the various other claims :

• Pretty much everyone involved with the military / intelligence communities in Francophone Africa around the time of independence was involved with the French military, so the fact that French legionnaires are involved isn't really significant, and doesn't prove that the French government ordered it. All what it tells us is that legionnaires are often involved in shady business. I'm not going to say that France has never supported a coup in Africa, but it doesn't do it systematically, and just a few years ago a French mercenary who made a coup in the Comores was actually arrested by French special forces.

• If the purpose of those coups was to get Mali and Guinea back in the franc area, then how come did Guinea never come back, and Mali only 20 years later ?

• Why don't they mention that other countries have left the franc area, like Madagascar, and didn't experience a coup immediately after that ?

• Why don't they mention that countries like Guinea Bissau deliberately joined the franc area ?