0,05 Franc

French Somaliland's Chamber of Commerce resorted to cardboard emergency fractional notes in 1919 because the acute coin shortage that had plagued the colony during the war years had not resolved with the Armistice. Chambers of commerce across the French empire were authorized to issue these bons de nécessité, and Djibouti's series — covering several tiny denominations including this five-centime value — filled gaps that the metropolitan treasury had neither the capacity nor the interest to address promptly.

The cardboard format was deliberate: small enough to substitute for a coin, durable enough for brief circulation, and cheap enough to produce locally. Most were retired and destroyed once proper coinage returned, which accounts for their scarcity.