Emprunt National

This 1920 French Algerian poster for "Emprunt National" (National Loan) by artist Henri Villain depicts Algerian men with sheep flocks on a pier watching cargo being loaded onto boats, promoting post-World War I reconstruction bonds to colonial investors. Published in Paris by Devambez and produced as a color lithograph measuring 118 x 79 cm, the poster was commissioned by the Compagnie Algérienne, a financial institution seeking loan subscribers in France's North African colony. Post-war France faced catastrophic reconstruction needs after four years of combat had devastated northeastern industrial regions, destroyed transportation infrastructure, and killed or disabled millions of working-age men, creating fiscal crisis that required massive borrowing to finance economic recovery.

Colonial Algeria, economically integrated with metropolitan France since the mid-nineteenth century, represented an important source of reconstruction capital as French authorities sought to mobilize resources throughout the empire. The pastoral imagery of shepherds and maritime commerce projected stability and prosperity, suggesting that bond investments would support orderly economic activity rather than risky speculation. Another version by artist Jean Droit for Crédit Algérien employed similar themes, reflecting coordinated campaign to attract Algerian investors. The poster documents France's reliance on colonial territories not just for wartime manpower—hundreds of thousands of North African soldiers served in French armies—but for post-war economic recovery through financial exploitation. The romanticized depiction of Algerian life, showing peaceful commerce rather than colonial extraction or the political tensions that would eventually produce independence movements, exemplifies how imperial powers represented colonies as contented partners in shared prosperity rather than subjugated territories whose resources were appropriated to serve metropolitan interests. This poster reveals how reconstruction financing extended imperial relationships into new domains, with colonies expected to fund rebuilding of a homeland that claimed to civilize them while denying political rights and economic self-determination.