Bruno Le Maire wanted to go to war against the Libra, the battle is clear: the Minister of Economy announced Friday, October 18, that France, Italy and Germany together prepare a series of measures to ban in Europe the future cryptocurrency of Facebook.

"In the coming weeks, with Olaf Scholz and Roberto Gualtieri, my German and Italian counterparts, we will take a number of initiatives to make it clear that Libra is not welcome in Europe because it is our sovereignty that is at stake, "he said at a press conference on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington.

"We will not accept that a private multinational company has the same power, the same monetary power as the sovereign states that are subject to democratic control," he added. "Because the big difference between Facebook and the states is that we are subject to democratic control, that is, to the control of the people."

>> To read also: "Why Bruno Le Maire goes to war against Facebook's cryptocurrency"

The G7, the group of the seven most industrialized countries (Germany, Canada, United States, France, United Kingdom, Italy and Japan), meeting in Washington on Thursday, had already agreed that the prerequisite for launching stable cryptocurrencies like the Libra was the establishment of a legal framework.

"Preserving the autonomy of democratic states"

But Europeans seem to want to go further by simply banning Facebook's currency.

Olaf Scholz followed suit with his French counterpart, stressing that he was "very skeptical" about the Libra. "I am in favor of not allowing the introduction of such a global currency, because it is the task of democratic states," he said.

He also agrees that it is "necessary to reform" the banking and banking sector to make cross-border international payments easier, faster and cheaper, "but at the same time, it is necessary to preserve the autonomy democratic states, "he continued.

The Italian Finance Minister was not immediately available to comment on this information.

"Do we want a monetary policy in the hands of a private company ?"

"I repeat, our priority today is to work with regulators to answer their legitimate questions and give them all the necessary guarantees," responded Bertrand Perez, the director general of the Libra Association.

But Bruno Le Maire seemed to dismiss the idea of ​​working hand in hand with Facebook. He recalled one of the particularly contentious points: the fact that the Libra will be backed by a basket of currencies.

"It will be enough if Facebook decides to have more euros or more dollars to have an impact on the exchange rate of the euro or the dollar and therefore a direct impact on the trade, the industry, the states that have reference currency is the euro or the dollar, "he said.

And the French minister concluded: "Do we want monetary policy to be in the hands of a private company like Facebook?" My answer is clearly no.

Bruno Le Maire, however, stressed that he was not against the establishment of a public digital currency, on which France is willing to work "in a European framework". "The right answer is not a private digital currency under the leadership of one of the largest multinationals in the world, which has 2.4 billion customers," he continued.

Defection of PayPal, Visa, Mastercard and eBay

G20 Finance Ministers in Washington on Friday called for "assessing" and "fixing" the risks posed by stable digital currencies such as Facebook's Libra before they are launched.

"While we recognize the potential benefits of innovation in the financial sector, we agree that stable digital currencies (...) present a series of significant policy and regulatory risks", said in a statement the Japanese presidency of the G20.

The G20 refers in particular to money laundering, illicit financing or undermining the protection of consumers and investors. "Such risks (...) need to be assessed and remedied appropriately before such projects can start," she added.

The Libra Association was officially launched on Monday by 21 founding members in Geneva, including PayU, Vodafone, Iliad, Uber, Spotify, Anchorage, Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz and Kiva.

However, the project was recently weakened by the defection of PayPal, Visa, Mastercard or eBay.

With AFP