According to Reuters, French Finance Minister Roland Lescure emphasized the need for more euro-issued stablecoins and encouraged banks in EU countries to explore tokenized deposits on Friday. This marks a potential shift in the French government's and its central bank's approach to digital payments.
Lescure expressed 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 this is what we want," Lescure stated, also urging banks to further investigate the launch of tokenized deposits. He noted that the current volume of euro-pegged stablecoins is "not satisfactory" compared to dollar-pegged ones. This stance differs from the previous strict regulatory approach led by former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who considered privately-issued fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies a threat to national sovereignty.
More recently, Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau warned that stablecoins could accelerate the privatization of money and loss of monetary sovereignty.