1/2 Fanon Pondichery

The Compagnie des Indes received its consolidated royal charter in 1719 under John Law's sweeping reorganization of French colonial finance — the same speculative apparatus that collapsed catastrophically in 1720. The Pondicherry mint continued operating through the aftermath, producing fractional copper coinage for local commerce at a time when the Company's metropolitan finances were in ruins. These bronze fanon fractions circulated primarily among small traders and artisans in the French Tamil settlements, where European silver was too valuable for everyday transactions.

The fanon itself was a unit borrowed from indigenous South Indian monetary practice, not a French invention imposed on the colony.