2 Euro - Bourg-en-Bresse

A local emergency currency issued by the municipality of Bourg-en-Bresse, this nickel token belongs to a wave of town-issued bons de nécessité that proliferated across provincial France during the 1990s, circulating within strictly defined commercial zones as a tool for stimulating local retail spending. These municipal schemes were tolerated under French law as long as they remained non-convertible outside the issuing network. The approach itself echoed France's long tradition of jetons de nécessité from the First World War, when coin shortages forced hundreds of communes to issue their own substitutes.