5000 Francs - Gen. Schoelcher

The Caisse Centrale de la France d'Outre-Mer was established in 1944 specifically to handle currency for French overseas territories liberated from Vichy or Japanese occupation, and this high-denomination note falls within the immediate postwar reconstruction phase. Victor Schoelcher, the 19th-century abolitionist whose name the note carries, was a deliberate political choice — invoking emancipation at a moment when French colonial policy was under international scrutiny following the 1946 constitution's nominal extension of citizenship to overseas subjects.

Poughéon was a Prix de Rome laureate and accomplished academic painter; his involvement, alongside engravers of Piel and Marliat's caliber from the Banque de France's own atelier, placed this note among the more technically ambitious issues of the series. Armanelli's separate reverse engraving credit is worth noting — it was not always the practice to assign distinct engravers by face.