France bill floats BTC reserve and euro stablecoin use
According to reporting by The Big Whale’s Grégory Raymond on Oct. 28, France’s Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR), led by Éric Ciotti, would table a comprehensive pro‑crypto bill in Parliament.
Framed as the most wide‑ranging crypto text yet floated in France, the proposal arrives as a standalone initiative with no cross‑party sponsorship, so expectations should be modest even as the signal to the market is loud.
The draft sketches a state Bitcoin reserve by creating a dedicated public entity (EPA) tasked with building holdings equal to about 2% of Bitcoin’s total supply – roughly 420,000 BTC over seven to eight years. Funding would blend public mining using surplus nuclear and hydro power, retention of BTC seized in legal proceedings, steady secondary‑market purchases financed in part by a slice of Livret A and LDDS flows, and even the option to accept tax payments in BTC if it passes constitutional muster.
On payments, the text elevates euro‑denominated stablecoins as a low‑cost alternative to card networks by allowing day‑to‑day use up to €200 without tax or social‑charge frictions and by permitting tax remittance in euro stablecoins. It also instructs the government to seek EU‑level tweaks that make MiCA friendlier to issuance by European banks and corporates while opposing a retail digital euro, arguing that private, regulated stablecoins better balance innovation with financial freedoms.
To support domestic industry, the proposal advocates energy‑pricing relief for flexible mining sites – via a progressive excise and experimental TURPE tariffs – and expands investment access by allowing crypto ETNs inside PEA accounts. It also nudges Brussels to revisit prudential risk weights so that Lombard lending against crypto collateral can exist within bank rulebooks rather than outside them.
Politically, this reads more as positioning than near‑term statute. UDR holds just 16 of 577 seats and the text is not tied to the government’s Finance Bill, making swift passage unlikely. Still, it plants a flag in an area where France already wields outsized influence at the EU table and could seed ideas that reappear in committee work, decrees, or European negotiations.
The regulatory backdrop is clear: France’s AMF has long operated the PSAN regime and the country is now fully under MiCA – stablecoin provisions since June 30, 2024, and broader rules since Dec. 30, 2024. Any move toward a sovereign BTC reserve or stablecoins for taxes would need to mesh with EU accounting, prudential and public‑finance constraints, including custody and risk controls, and with energy policy if public mining is part of the toolkit.
Finally, the emphasis on euro stablecoins fits Paris’s preference to reduce dependence on dollar‑pegged tokens. In practice, the thrust here is not to reinvent law but to make daily use workable under MiCA – point‑of‑sale payments, tax workflows, and bank‑grade issuers – while keeping the CBDC debate at arm’s length.
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