Minister of Economy and Finance of France Bruno Le Mare said that the blockchain technology is a priority for his government. Le Maire made this statement in an interview with the French magazine Capital on April 15, on the eve of the Paris Blockchain Week Summit on April 16-17.
As evidence of France’s commitment to the nascent sector, Le Maire reported that the state plans to invest 4.5 billion euros ( $ 5 million ) in breakthrough innovations, including the blockchain, in order to combat Chinese and American technology dominance.
In addition to funding, he highlighted the progress of blockchain regulation proclaimed by the PACTE Act, which was adopted by the French National Assembly earlier this week.
In an interview with Le Maire, he described the bill as “an unprecedented and attractive legal framework for tokens issuers and digital asset service providers.”
Looking ahead to the agenda for the remainder of 2019, Le Mayor said that the government had determined new directions for its blockchain policy. It is reported that they include the introduction of the blockchain in the French industrial sectors, the financing of innovative blockchain projects and the support of these projects on legal and regulatory issues.
The minister suggested that the French crypto-taxation system offers a reliable and transparent accounting system typical of the new sector. As reported in December 2018, lawmakers nevertheless rejected the amendments to the French Finance Bill 2019, which would ease the tax burden on cryptocurrency users.
Le Maire also praised the decline in the market for the initial supply of coins, saying that it was necessary for the health of the sector and that the recession “does not detract from the potential and benefits offered by the new method of financing.”
In a separate comment on the prospect of using the central bank digital currencies (CBDC) to terminate intermediation in the financial system, Le Mayr expressed confidence that “such a project is not mature in the short term” and that many legal and technical issues remain unresolved in regarding publicly available , wholesale CBDC.
He also stressed the need for blockchain protocols for developing more energy efficient mechanisms and protecting the financial system from the risk of money laundering.
As previously reported, during the recent debate on cryptocurrency in France, the head of the National Assembly Finance Committee favored a ban on anonymity-oriented cryptocurrencies, such as Monero (XMR) and zcash (ZEC).
