5 Livres

The Banque de Syrie et du Liban issued this note under conditions of wartime occupation — by 1942, the Free French had control of the Levant following the Syria-Lebanon campaign of 1941, and the bank continued issuing currency under that authority while the region's political future remained genuinely unresolved. Printing by the Banque de France press in Beirut rather than in Paris reflects the practical severing of metropolitan supply chains under wartime conditions.

R. Soriano's credit appears in the design margins — his work for the BSL series is consistent across several denominations of this period.