French Finance Minister Roland Lescure emphasized the need for more euro-denominated stablecoins in Europe, urging banks across the EU to explore tokenized deposits, as reported by Reuters. This statement suggests a potential shift in the French government's and its central bank's policy. Lescure expressed his support for Qivalis, a consortium of 12 European banks, including BBVA, ING, UniCredit, and BNP Paribas, which plans to launch a euro-pegged stablecoin in the second half of 2026 to counter US dominance in digital payments. "This is what we need and what we want," Lescure stated, also encouraging banks to further investigate the launch of tokenized deposits.
He noted that the relatively low volume of euro-pegged stablecoins compared to dollar-pegged ones is "unsatisfactory." This stance marks a departure from the previous strict regulatory approach, led by former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who argued that privately-issued fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies posed a threat to national sovereignty. More recently, Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau warned that stablecoins and tokenized private money could accelerate the privatization of money and loss of monetary sovereignty.