France's National Assembly finance committee adopted an amendment on Wednesday 7 October that would end tax deferral on conversions between crypto-assets and stablecoins, one of ten crypto-related amendments attached to the 2027 budget. Under current rules, swapping bitcoin for a stablecoin does not trigger a taxable event because both are treated as crypto-assets. The amendment, numbered I-CF1826, would change that from 1 January 2027, treating such conversions like a sale into euros.
The text was signed by communist deputy Nicolas Sansu and co-signed by sixteen members of the GDR parliamentary group. The amendment's own wording describes the current treatment as "a loophole in the legislation."
The idea did not originate in parliament. It was first laid out in a tribune published by Le Monde on 18 May 2026, signed by three crypto industry figures: Jean Meyer, cofounder and CEO of Deblock; Pierre Morizot, cofounder and head of Waltio; and Damien Patureaux, cofounder and director of Lyzi. Waltio was a commercial partner of Journal du Coin until 2025. The authors argued that stablecoin holdings represent "as much tax base sleeping outside the French banking circuit," and estimated the shortfall from untaxed conversions at between 1 and 3 billion euros a year.
Applied to a simple case, the measure would have real weight: a bitcoin bought at 30,000 euros and converted to stablecoins at 100,000 euros would generate a 70,000-euro gain, taxed at France's flat 31.4% rate for a bill of 21,980 euros. France currently exempts annual crypto sales below 305 euros. By comparison, the United Kingdom taxes such gains at 18% or 24% depending on income, with a 3,000-pound annual allowance, while Italy raised its own rate to 33% from 1 January 2026.
Adan's silence
Adan, the trade association founded in January 2020 and now counting around 100 members, has not publicly campaigned against the amendment, even though it opposes the measure internally over concerns it favours stablecoins issued outside MiCA rules. The association's roughly 100 members include two euro-denominated stablecoin issuers, Circle and Société Générale Forge. Adan is led by president Stanislas Barthelemi and director general Claire Balva, who took up her post on 1 September 2025.
The clearest public pushback has come from outside the association. Lawyer Alexandre Lourimi of cabinet ORWL published an editorial on 30 September arguing the amendment "would offer a bonus to non-MiCA-compliant dollar stablecoins," since taxing conversions into regulated euro stablecoins while leaving other crypto-to-crypto trades untouched could push users toward offshore dollar tokens instead.
The Cour des comptes had already flagged France's crypto tax framework in December 2023 as "unsuited to the use of crypto-assets as means of payment." An Adan/Ipsos barometer published on 9 April 2026, financed by ten companies including Circle and SG-Forge, found that 11% of French adults — about six million people — hold crypto-assets.
The amendment is one of several crypto-related proposals moving through the budget process, alongside a wallet-declaration threshold pushed by centrist deputy Charles de Courson and a payments franchise proposed by presidential-camp deputy Paul Midy. A separate declaration-threshold amendment backed last year was dropped in the joint committee on 28 April 2026. Parliamentary debate on the budget's revenue side resumes from the government's original text on 13 October, with a solemn vote scheduled for 20 October.
