As was easily expected, the acceleration imposed by the publication of the Libra White Paper it is causing quite a few fibrillations in the political world. After the tweet of Maxine Walters, authoritative member of Congress American, now it's the turn of Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Economy and Finance of Paris, to pronounce on Facebook's new cryptocurrency. With tones, however, not very conciliatory towards the creation of the social network of Menlo Park.
Le Maire's words
Le Maire's statements were made during a radio broadcast, Europe 1, and seem to leave no doubt about the negative opinion issued regarding Libra. According to the transalpine government official, in fact, Facebook's virtual currency cannot and must not become a sovereign currency. As instead it could do precisely because of a series of characteristics that lead it to challenge state prerogatives in a completely natural way, giving excessive powers to what remains a private company.
Furthermore, Le Maire once again wanted to emphasize that virtual currencies are likely to be the perfect tool to facilitate not only the illegal economy, but also terrorist activities.
Then the reference to the events involving the social network of Mark Zuckerberg could not be missing the accumulation of consumer data, which could be repeated precisely with the spread of Libra. So much so that the French minister is urged to ask for stricter controls on the giants of the digital world in order to prevent them from overflowing from their prerogatives.
From critic to supporter of digital assets
It is not the first time that Le Maire has made its voice heard on the issue of digital assets. After being a very critical voice for a long time, in mid-2018, however, it had aroused a certain wonder when he confessed to having turned into a supporter of virtual currencies. So much so as to affirm its desire to make France the leading country in Europe in terms of Blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
A rather astonishing evolution in the light of a series of public statements that are clearly critical of the digital economy, such as that according to which Bitcoin could prove to be an ideal tool for promoting illegal practices, as well as lending itself perfectly for purely speculative purposes.
Words to which he had moreover followed the facts, with the launch of a observatory on creation attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, at the head of which he had indicated a former deputy governor of the Bank of France, who in turn had spared no criticism of Bitcoin.
Furthermore, Le Maire himself had promoted a sort of Franco-German axis aimed at creating stringent legislation between the member countries of the G20, with the specific aim of placing a series of stakes capable of weakening their ambitions for independence from political and monetary authorities. Intent that hadn't stopped him at the same time from showing an increasing interest in digital assets up to declare itself against the proposal to tax virtual currencies in the same way as precious metals.
