Marianne wearing a Phrygian cap, left, surrounded by the country name. Engraver's name near Marianne's chin.

Marianne is a national symbol of the French Republic, an allegory of liberty and reason, and a portrayal of the Goddess of Liberty. It is a significant republican symbol, opposed to monarchy, and an icon of freedom and democracy against all forms of dictatorship.

The Phrygian cap is a soft conical cap with the top pulled forward, associated in antiquity with several peoples in Eastern Europe and Anatolia, including Phrygia, Dacia, and the Balkans. In early modern Europe it came to signify freedom and the pursuit of liberty through a confusion with the pileus, the felt cap of manumitted (emancipated) slaves of ancient Rome. Accordingly, the Phrygian cap sometimes is called a liberty cap.

Value above fasces in front of an oak branch. Date below.

Mintmark of the Paris Mint (Cornucopia) on the left of the fasces and a privy mark of Chief Engraver (torch, Henri Auguste Patey, 1896-1930) on the right of the date.

Fasces (from the Latin word fascis, meaning "bundle") is a bound bundle of wooden rods, sometimes including an axe with its blade emerging. The fasces typically appeared in a context reminiscent of the Roman Republic and of the Roman Empire. The French Revolution used many references to the ancient Roman Republic in its imagery. During the First Republic, topped by the Phrygian cap, the fasces is a tribute to the Roman Republic and means that power belongs to the people. It also symbolizes the "unity and indivisibility of the Republic", as stated in the French Constitution. There is the fasces in the arms of the French Republic with the "RF" for République française. While it is used widely by French officials, this symbol never was officially adopted by the government.