5000 Francs

This note was printed in Paris at the height of the German occupation — an odd circumstance given that Algeria remained under Vichy French administration and was not itself occupied. The Banque de France continued producing colonial currency through 1942 even as its own metropolitan notes were being issued under German supervision, a bureaucratic compartmentalization that says a great deal about how Vichy managed its empire.

Deloche was among the Banque de France's senior engravers of the period, responsible for some of the most technically refined intaglio work produced in France during the 1930s and 40s. The 5000 Franc denomination placed this note firmly in the hands of merchants and administrators rather than ordinary Algerians, whose wages rarely approached its face value.