France warns against sterling’s growth in Europe
- Posted on June 20, 2022
French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire believes the Facebook currency could threaten the “monetary sovereignty” of states.
In his opening remarks at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) meeting on Thursday (December 9, 2019), French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire warned that Paris will block the European launch of Libra, the cryptocurrency Facebook wants. The development was launched in 2020 as it threatened the nation’s “monetary sovereignty”.
“I want to be absolutely clear: in this case, we cannot authorize the pound to develop on European soil,” the French minister said. “The monetary sovereignty of the nation is at stake,” he assured, warning of the risk that this “possible privatization of money (…) could be in the hands of a single actor with more than 2 billion users.” planet. “
The British pound is designed to include support for a range of monetary assets to avoid the sudden changes that Bitcoin suffers, as well as other cryptocurrencies. Another important difference is that control over the pound is not decentralized, but based on a non-profit organization based in Switzerland. In addition to Facebook, Libra is sponsored by Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal, among others.
Good business… Facebook
“Any malfunction of the currency in terms of its reserve management could cause serious financial disruption,” said Le Maire, who also worried that Facebook’s pound would replace the national currencies of countries with fragile or already existing currencies. The sharp depreciation hampered the government’s efforts to manage the economy.
Facebook has used its currency as an opportunity to give more than 1 billion unbanked people access to financial services and online commerce at the lowest cost. The plan would also allow Facebook to integrate financial services into its products, expand its own business platform and enable more small businesses to pay to advertise on the social network.
French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire believes the Facebook currency could threaten the “monetary sovereignty” of states.