1 Franc - Dépôt d'Alençon

During World War One, the drain of coinage into hoarding and industrial use created acute small-change shortages across France. The Ministère de l'Intérieur authorized a patchwork of local emergency issues — chambres de commerce, municipalities, and internment camp administrations all printed their own fractional notes. The Dépôt d'Alençon was one such internment facility, issuing this franc note for internal circulation among detainees rather than the general public, which makes it functionally closer to a camp scrip than a civic emergency note.

Survivors are scarce for the obvious reason: notes that never left a closed population rarely escaped destruction when the facility closed.