2 Francs

This issue belongs to the first coinage of the Fifth Republic, authorized under de Gaulle's new constitutional order following the collapse of the Fourth Republic in 1958. The entire aluminum-magnesium franc series was itself a product of the 1960 redenomination, which replaced 100 old francs with one nouveau franc — a move designed to signal economic stabilization after years of postwar inflation and the financial hemorrhaging of the Indochina and Algerian wars.

Aluminum coinage at this denomination was a deliberate concession to cost; France had been minting subsidiary coins in base metals since the postwar shortages never fully resolved at the lower denominations.