World AIDS Day

The red ribbon, symbol of the fight against AIDS — an inverted letter V created by the artist group Visual AIDS Artists Caucus and American painter Frank Moore. The inner field shows three ribbons: one in the conventional orientation, coloured red in both the brilliant uncirculated and proof versions; the other two depicted upside-down, complemented by two letter Vs representing the long-awaited "Victory" over the disease. The UNESCO World AIDS Day date "1er décembre" forms the upper rim of the national side.

AIDS is one of the most consequential pandemics of modern times: since the first documented case in the early 1980s, more than 85 million people worldwide have been infected with HIV, and around 40 million have died from its effects. France played a central role in the early research into the disease — at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, the team led by Luc Montagnier identified the virus in 1983, work for which Montagnier received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008. To this day, France remains among the countries with the largest state commitment to prevention and research; Paris is regularly the venue for international AIDS conferences and home to major NGOs in this field.

World AIDS Day has been observed annually on 1 December since 1988 and is the oldest global health campaign of the United Nations. The red ribbon, designed in 1991 by the American artists' collective the Visual AIDS Artists Caucus, has since become an internationally recognised symbol of solidarity with those affected and their loved ones. It stands not for an organisation but for a societal commitment — against discrimination, for research funding and open education. On the occasion of World AIDS Day 2014, France marked this commitment with its own commemorative coin, sending a public signal on one of the most pressing issues in global health policy.