'Becoming a cashless society would not solve France's problems'

In May 2025, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin told a Senate commission that one radical way to tackle drug trafficking would be to ban cash.

A “drastic reduction, or even the elimination of cash”, he argued, “would allow for better traceability”. 

There is no doubt that cash is becoming less commonly used, but could France ban it entirely? 

In 2024, for the first time there were more card payments in France than cash transactions, according to the Banque de France. 
“Covid was a very powerful boost for cashless payments. Overnight, small retailers moved from a (spending) limit that was mostly €5 or €10, to €1 or no limit at all,” said Patrice Baubeau, associate professor of economic history at Paris Nanterre University.

“This movement towards a cashless society has been accelerated.” 

Over the past decade, France has steadily made it more difficult to use cash for many different kinds of payments.

“You cannot buy a car with cash, you cannot buy a house or real estate with cash, you cannot pay wages over a certain amount with cash; there have been more and more restrictions on the use of cash over time.”

Many cash payments are capped at €1,000 in France. An EU-wide limit of €10,000 is set to come into force in 2027.

But public opinion is against going entirely cashless: 60% of people think it is important or very important to have access to cash for privacy reasons, according to a Banque de France study. 

“I don’t think it is possible to have an economy that is fully scripted, where you can trace every transaction to someone,” said Professor Baubeau. 

(Read the full article online on the Connexion website)