1 Franc

Madagascar's wartime coinage was minted in Pretoria, South Africa, under Free French authority after the fall of France in 1940 severed normal supply chains from Paris. Britain had seized Madagascar from Vichy control in 1942, and the Free French needed circulating coinage quickly. The Pretoria Mint struck these bronze pieces under an arrangement that kept the colony economically functional during the transition.

Bronze was a deliberate wartime substitution — nickel and other base metals were under military priority allocation across the Allied supply chain.