5 Francs - Ville de Lille

When German forces occupied Lille in October 1914, the city's commercial life ground to a halt almost immediately. The municipal authority issued these emergency notes — known in French numismatic literature as monnaie de nécessité — because the requisitioning of metallic coinage by occupying forces left virtually nothing in circulation for ordinary transactions. L. Danel was a long-established Lille printing house, which meant the notes could be produced locally without external coordination, a practical necessity under occupation conditions.

The dry stamp and control stamp were the city's primary defense against counterfeiting — simple but reasonably effective for a short-term emergency instrument. Most of these notes were redeemed and destroyed after the war, making intact survivors more notable than their plain production suggests.