100 Francs with "RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE" overprint

The Institut d'Émission d'Outre-Mer served the French overseas territories in the Pacific — New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna — and the "RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE" overprint on this series was a political and administrative clarification as much as a printing decision. France had been reworking the institutional relationships with its remaining Pacific territories through the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the overprint signaled that these notes circulated under the direct authority of the French Republic rather than any colonial or territorial intermediary.

The Banque de France printed the underlying notes, which is unremarkable — what matters is that the overprint was applied to existing stock rather than commissioning an entirely new design, a cost-saving shortcut that was common across French overseas currency series of this period.