According to recent reports, French Finance Minister Roland Lescure emphasized the need for a greater number of euro-issued stablecoins in Europe, urging banks across the EU to explore the potential of tokenized deposits. This shift in perspective may signal a change in the French government's and its central bank's approach to cryptocurrency. Lescure expressed his support for Qivalis, a consortium of 12 European banks planning to launch a euro-pegged stablecoin in the second half of 2026, aiming 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 this as "not satisfactory." Previously, the French government had taken a stricter stance on privately issued fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies, with former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire stating that they posed a threat to national sovereignty. More recently, the Governor of the Bank of France, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, warned of the potential risks of stablecoins and tokenized private money, citing the threat of privatization of money and loss of monetary sovereignty.