According to Reuters, French Finance Minister Roland Lescure stated on Friday that the European Union needs more stablecoins pegged to the euro and that EU banks should explore the use of tokenized deposits. This announcement appears to signal a shift in the French government's and its central bank's approach to digital currencies.
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. The goal is to counter the dominance of the US in digital payments.
Lescure emphasized, "This is what we need, and this is what we want." He also encouraged banks to further investigate the launch of tokenized deposits. The relatively low volume of euro-pegged stablecoins compared to those pegged to the US dollar was deemed "unsatisfactory" by Lescure. Previously, the French government had taken a strict stance against privately issued fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies, with former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire stating that they posed a threat to the sovereignty of nations. In 2023, Le Maire was linked to an EU document outlining the European Commission's plan to prevent stablecoins from becoming widely used in place of traditional currency.
More recently, the Governor of the Bank of France, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, warned that stablecoins and tokenized private money could accelerate the loss of monetary sovereignty, which he framed as a political threat.