5 Dinars

Issiakhem was one of Algeria's most important painters — a fine artist, not a commercial illustrator — and his involvement in designing state currency in the early independence years reflects a deliberate cultural policy by the Algerian government to assert a distinct postcolonial identity through its institutions. He lost his right hand in a childhood accident and painted with his left throughout his career, a biographical detail that makes his precision in this work all the more striking.

The Banque de France printed Algerian notes well into the 1970s despite the two countries' complicated political relationship — pragmatic capacity contracting, nothing more.