20 Para - Selim III French Occupation

Napoleon's Egyptian campaign left the Ottoman monetary system in Cairo in a state of administrative chaos. When French forces occupied Egypt from 1798, they initially relied on existing Ottoman coinage but soon found local mint operations disrupted enough to require intervention. This billon issue — debased silver well below standard — reflects the degraded monetary conditions of the occupation period rather than any deliberate French policy decision.

The Misr mint continued operating under nominal Ottoman authority even as French administrators held practical control, an awkward jurisdictional fiction that ended with the British-assisted Ottoman reconquest in 1801.