1 Franc - Saint Brieuc

Saint-Brieuc, in the Côtes-du-Nord, hosted one of the many prisoner-of-war depot networks administered under the French 10th Military Region during the First World War. These fractional franc notes were issued for internal camp use — a closed monetary system that kept German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners from accessing French commercial currency. The printing was almost certainly local and makeshift, which accounts for the crude typography and variable paper quality found across surviving examples.

Prisoner camp issues from this period were never intended to outlast their immediate function. Most were destroyed or discarded at the armistice.