While Nordic countries are backtracking on going cash-free, France’s justice minister has suggested eliminating cash in order to fight crime. But even as French consumers increasingly turn to card payments, not everyone is ready to forgo cash altogether.<\/p>\n
Cash plays a central role in the illicit drug trade and in financial crimes<\/a>, French Justice Minister G\u00e9rald Darmanin told a Senate commission<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n “A large part of fraud, everyday delinquency, and even criminal networks are linked to cash,” he said, suggesting that between \u20ac4-6 billion a year is involved in illicit drug trafficking.<\/p>\n “One solution could be a drastic reduction \u2013 or even the elimination \u2013 of cash, to allow for better traceability,” he said, while acknowledging that eliminating cash would not end drug dealing entirely.<\/p>\n “There will always be drugs<\/a> and drug deliveries, but once money becomes traceable it becomes more difficult for both the consumer and dealer to bypass financial oversight.”<\/p>\n France to boost police and courts in fight against rising drug scourge<\/a><\/p>\n Card payments on the rise<\/p>\n Card and mobile payments now make up 52 percent of transactions, compared to 43 percent for cash, with the rest via cheque or bank transfers.<\/p>\n Read more on RFI English<\/a><\/p>\n Read also:
France’s first cashierless superstore gets frosty welcome<\/a>
Does Europe really need a ‘digital euro’?<\/a>
Prisons targeted with arson, gunfire as France cracks down on drug crime<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Nordic countries are backtracking on going cash-free, France’s justice minister has suggested eliminating cash in order to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36,69221,69222,50807,58510],"class_list":{"0":"post-165137","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-illicit-drug","12":"tag-illicit-drug-trafficking","13":"tag-justice-minister","14":"tag-nordic-countries"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114642483218975405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}