France’s finance minister is pushing for more euro-denominated stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits, signaling a potential softening of Paris’s earlier hardline on private digital money.
Speaking Friday, Finance Minister Roland Lescure told Reuters Europe needs more stablecoins issued in euros and urged banks across the EU to “further explore the launch of tokenised deposits.” He voiced support for Qivalis — a consortium of 12 European banks, including BBVA, ING, UniCredit and BNP Paribas — which plans to roll out a euro-pegged stablecoin in the second half of 2026. “That is what we need and that is what we want,” Lescure said, adding that the relatively small volume of euro-pegged stablecoins compared with dollar-pegged alternatives is “not satisfactory.”
The comments mark a contrast with former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who previously took a strict regulatory line on privately issued fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies, asserting they “had no place on European soil” and posed a threat to “the sovereignty of nations.” In 2023, Le Maire was associated with an EU document that aimed to limit stablecoins’ potential to supplant fiat currency.
Central bankers have also voiced caution. Bank of France Governor François Villeroy de Galhau, during a public exchange with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong about stablecoins and yields, warned that tokenized private money could accelerate a broader political risk: “The first threat is privatization of money, and loss of monetary sovereignty,” he said.
Lescure’s backing of industry-led, euro-denominated stablecoins and his call for tokenized deposits suggest France may be recalibrating its approach — seeking to foster European innovation in digital payments while the region grapples with the regulatory and sovereignty questions that come with private digital money.
Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news
