5 Centimes

Emergency small-change tokens issued in paper were common across French Algeria during the First World War, when the hoarding of coins — even the smallest denominations — left local commerce effectively paralyzed. The Union des Commerçants de Relizane was one of dozens of local merchants' associations across the Oran department that stepped in to produce their own fractional substitutes, circulating them as a de facto local currency within their immediate trading communities.

Relizane, a market town in the Chelif valley, was not a major administrative center, which makes surviving examples from this issuer genuinely uncommon.