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 shift in stance is reflected in Lescure's 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. The goal is to counter the dominance of the US in digital payments. Lescure emphasized, 'That's what we need, and that's what we want.' He also encouraged banks to further investigate the launch of tokenized deposits, citing the current low volume of euro-pegged stablecoins compared to those pegged to the dollar as 'unsatisfactory'.
This marks a departure from the previous strict regulatory stance against privately issued fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies, led by former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who had deemed them a threat to national sovereignty. More recently, the Governor of the Bank of France, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, warned that stablecoins and tokenized private money could pose a threat to monetary sovereignty.