According to recent reports, French Finance Minister Roland Lescure emphasized the need for more euro-denominated stablecoins and urged banks across the European Union to explore the potential of tokenized deposits. This statement marks a significant shift in the government's stance on digital payments.
Lescure expressed his support for Qivalis, a consortium of 12 European banks, including prominent institutions such as BBVA, ING, UniCredit, and BNP Paribas, which plans to launch a euro-pegged stablecoin in the latter half of 2026. The move aims to counter the dominance of the US in the digital payments landscape. "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 dollar-pegged ones, describing it as "not satisfactory." Previously, the French government had adopted a stricter regulatory approach to privately issued fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies, with the former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire stating that they had no place in Europe and posed a threat to national sovereignty.
In 2023, Le Maire was linked to an EU document outlining plans to limit the widespread use of stablecoins as a replacement for traditional currency. More recently, the Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau warned that stablecoins and tokenized private money could accelerate the privatization of money and the loss of monetary sovereignty, which he framed as a significant political threat.