French Finance Minister Roland Lescure has called for an increase in euro-issued stablecoins, urging banks across the European Union (EU) to explore tokenized deposits, as reported by Reuters on Friday. This marks a possible shift in policy from both the French government and its central bank.
Lescure backed Qivalis, an alliance of 12 European financial institutions including BBVA, ING, UniCredit, and BNP Paribas, which plan to introduce a euro-pegged stablecoin by mid-2026. This initiative aims to challenge the dominance of U.S.-based digital payment systems.
“That is what we need and that’s what we want,” stated Lescure. He further advocated for banks to investigate launching tokenized deposits.
Lescure criticized the current low volume of euro-pegged stablecoins compared with their dollar-pegged counterparts, deeming it “not satisfactory.”
Previously, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire adopted a rigorous regulatory approach against privately-issued fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies, labeling them as threats to national sovereignty and asserting they had no place in Europe. In 2023, he was connected to an EU document suggesting plans by the European Commission to prevent stablecoins from supplanting traditional currencies.
In a recent debate with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau highlighted concerns that stablecoins and tokenized private money could lead to privatization of currency. “The first threat is privatization of money, leading to a loss of monetary sovereignty,” he remarked.