According to recent reports, French Finance Minister Roland Lescure has emphasized the need for more stablecoins pegged to the euro, urging European banks to explore tokenized deposits. This shift in perspective may signal a new direction for the French government and its central bank. 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 "not satisfactory" compared to those pegged to the US dollar.
This stance marks a departure from the previous strict regulatory approach, led by former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who had expressed concerns about the threat of privately-issued fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies to European sovereignty. More recently, the Governor of the Bank of France, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, warned about the potential risks of stablecoins and tokenized private money, citing the loss of monetary sovereignty as a primary concern.