France - Military medal - French knight’s insignia (chevalier) of the Order of the Black Star (Ordre de l'Étoile Noire),

The order was originally established on 30 December 1889 by King Toffa of Porto-Novo (the then capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey, present-day Benin). It was intended to reward French officers and local allies who helped establish the French protectorate.
In 1894 France officially recognized the order and it became one of the French colonial orders (later called the Order of the Overseas). The French government thus assumed full administration and conferment.
The order was definitively abolished on 3 December 1963 at the instigation of President Charles de Gaulle. Together with 15 other ministerial and colonial orders, it was then replaced by the current French National Order of Merit (Ordre national du Mérite).