1 Euro - Barcelonnette

Barcelonnette issued this local currency token during the 1990s wave of French municipal "euro" pieces struck ahead of the single currency's actual introduction — a phenomenon driven partly by civic pride and partly by the souvenir trade that flourished around Euro-optimism in that decade. These issues carried no legal tender status and circulated, if at all, within tightly local commercial arrangements.

The town sits in the Ubaye valley of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, and its peculiar distinction is a 19th-century emigration wave to Mexico so substantial that returning wealthy settlers — the *Barcelonnettes* — rebuilt much of the town's architecture in a conspicuously Mexican-influenced style.