According to a recent statement by French Finance Minister Roland Lescure, the European Union needs to see more stablecoins pegged to the euro, and EU banks should explore the potential of tokenized deposits. This declaration was made on Friday and reported by Reuters.
The remarks suggest a possible shift in the French government's and its central bank's stance on the matter. Lescure expressed his support for Qivalis, a consortium of 12 European banks, including prominent institutions such as BBVA, ING, UniCredit, and BNP Paribas, which plan to launch a euro-pegged stablecoin in the second half of 2026. The move is intended to counter the dominance of the US in the digital payments sector.
"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 small compared to those pegged to the US dollar, describing this situation as "not satisfactory." Previously, the French government, under former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, had taken a strict stance against privately issued fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies, viewing them as a threat to national sovereignty.
In 2023, Le Maire was associated with an EU document outlining plans to limit the widespread use of stablecoins as a replacement for traditional fiat currency. More recently, the Governor of the Bank of France, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, warned about the potential risks of stablecoins and tokenized private money, framing them as a threat to monetary sovereignty.