5000 Francs - Gen. Schoelcher

The Caisse Centrale de la France d'Outre-Mer issued this note for circulation across multiple French overseas territories simultaneously — the same design served Martinique, Guadeloupe, Réunion, and French Guiana, among others, distinguished only by overprint or redemption rules rather than separate print runs. Poughéon was a Prix de Rome laureate and prominent figure in interwar French decorative arts, and his involvement with Banque de France commissions brought a different sensibility to colonial currency than the purely commercial engraving houses typically used.

Victor Schoelcher, whose name the note bears, was the French abolitionist responsible for the 1848 decree that permanently ended slavery in French territories — a politically pointed choice for notes circulating in the former plantation colonies.