French Finance Minister Roland Lescure expressed his support for the development of more euro-pegged stablecoins in the European Union on Friday, as reported by Reuters. He emphasized the need for banks across EU countries to explore the potential of tokenized deposits. This statement marks a significant shift in the French government's stance, as well as that of its central bank. Lescure's comments came as he endorsed 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.
The move aims to counter the dominance of the US in digital payments. "This is what we need, and this is what we want," Lescure stated, also encouraging banks to further investigate the launch of tokenized deposits. He noted that the current volume of euro-pegged stablecoins is relatively low compared to those pegged to the US dollar, describing the situation as "not satisfactory".
The shift in stance is notable, given the previous strict regulatory approach to privately issued fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies under former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who had stated that such currencies had no place in Europe and 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 threat of privatization of money and loss of monetary sovereignty.