Hi! I have been hiding under a hole. Found a box of coins I stashed away perhaps a couple of decades ago. This is a coin that I pulled from circulation when I was in France - I am guessing late 1990s. You can tell something is really wrong with this coin - the inner core is not flat with the outer ring with poor details. Magnetic, weight 6.50g. This is quite interesting as it shares similar characteristic with a genuine coin - inner core is magnetic and a genuine coin weight is 6.50g. Details on this 'coin' is quite blunt and has poor edge. I believe the face value of 10 franc is roughly around 2USD. I guess it's a wake up call that bi-metal coins have been counterfeited and weight can be manufactured very similar to a genuine coin. And this happened more than a couple of decades ago. Today's counterfeiters skills would easily exceed this.
I will say early 1990's.. 1992! Oh wait.. You probably meant you acquired it in the late 1990's.. My bad Yes it does look off a bit. Counterfeit Bi-Metallic coins were created in Europe a lot. I'm not saying it is but I will look for a refrance.. I mean reference!
Oh well, these days I am not all that concerned about coming across counterfeited coins in "everyday" life. (The old £1 piece in the UK, not bimetallic, was badly affected though.) Here in Germany the Bundesbank reported 33,000 fake pieces for 2018. Population is 83 million, so that would be one coin per 2,500 people. Guess it is similar elsewhere in the euro area. Of course not every piece gets noticed and reported. But banks in the EU have been required since late 2010 (end of transition period: 1/1/15) to check the authenticity of the coins they handle. Sure helped, but has made cash handling more expensive. Christian
As for the piece depicted in the initial post, yes, looks fake. @gxseries - Look here for example (search for "1988" on that page, or just scroll down) and compare that to the (linked) actual coin. If French franc coins were still worth anything (beyond the numismatic value), 10 fr would be $1.73 by the way. But neither the coins nor the paper money can still be redeemed ... Christian