1 Franc - Chambres de Commerce de Belfort

Belfort's Chamber of Commerce issued emergency fractional notes from 1915 because the wartime hoarding of metal coinage had stripped small-denomination currency from daily commerce almost entirely. Chambers of commerce across France were authorized to fill that gap, and Belfort — geographically isolated as the capital of France's smallest department, surrounded on three sides by territory that had been German since 1871 — had particular reason to act quickly.

The JP reference covers an unusually wide spread of signature and date varieties for a single denomination, suggesting sustained reissue across the full 1915–1916 window. Printed by B. Arnaud in Villeurbanne, a Lyon-suburb firm with a long track record in commercial and administrative printing.