According to Reuters, French Finance Minister Roland Lescure stated on Friday that Europe requires more stablecoins pegged to the euro, and EU banks should investigate tokenized deposits. This statement may signify a shift in the French government's and its central bank's stance. Lescure expressed his support for Qivalis, a consortium of 12 European banks, including BBVA, ING, UniCredit, and BNP Paribas, which plan 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 said, also encouraging banks to explore tokenized deposits further.
He finds the current volume of euro-pegged stablecoins compared to dollar-pegged ones "not satisfactory." The former Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, had previously taken a strict stance against privately issued fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies, considering them a threat to national sovereignty. In 2023, Le Maire was linked to an EU document outlining the European Commission's plan to limit the widespread use of stablecoins as a replacement for traditional currency. Recently, Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau warned that stablecoins and tokenized private money could pose a political threat, specifically the privatization of money and loss of monetary sovereignty, during a confrontation with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.