20 Euros - Mortagne au Perche

Mortagne-au-Perche holds an outsized place in North American settlement history as the primary embarkation point for thousands of Norman emigrants to New France during the 17th century — the town supplied more settlers to Quebec than virtually any other French commune. This 1996 issue almost certainly commemorates that connection, though local municipal silver pieces of this type were produced under France's 1991 liberalization of commemorative coinage rules, which briefly allowed communes to issue their own silver pieces for the collector market rather than circulation.