Three figures for a Monday morning. 2,397 arrests and 997 police officers and gendarmes injured after Saturday's mobilization, then a gap of 137 points between French debt and German debt. The Élysée this morning refused the resignation of Laurent Nuñez.
The street is not a crypto topic, but investors take the social pulse of a country before putting their money there, and this weekend gave them a brutal reading. On Tuesday, the Assembly votes on the revenue part of the 2027 budget and the tax on stablecoin conversions it contains. This tax is only one line of a text which affects all households and on which the government of Sébastien Lecornu is gambling for its survival.
One dead, town halls and Qonto in flames: the results of October 17
The toll doubled in forty-eight hours. Saturday evening, Sébastien Lecornu announced around 1,200 arrests and 150 injured among the police. On Sunday, the Interior Ministry counted 2,397 and 997, including seven seriously injured. In Paris, the police headquarters reported one death, victim of cardiorespiratory arrest in circumstances that are still unknown. The ministry counted 550,000 demonstrators, the CGT 800,000.
Limoges town hall, inaugurated in 1883, burned down. The town hall of Marseille was broken into and the residence of the prefect of Gironde ransacked. In Paris, the new Qonto headquarters was vandalized and then partially burned. The neobank inaugurated this former 11,000 square meter post office on September 24. It claims 750,000 corporate clients and is still awaiting its banking license from the ACPR.
Laurent Nuñez presented his resignation to Emmanuel Macron. The Élysée refused it this Monday morning in the name of “the need for continued command of the forces of law and order”. The press release also points to “failures of anticipation and information”.
Why the street is weighing on the confidence of crypto investors
The protesters were not targeting bitcoin or stablecoins. An investor looking for where to set up a team nevertheless reads this weekend as a risk indicator, in the same way as a borrowing rate. Ledger is located less than two kilometers from Qonto headquarters. The company has known this risk since the kidnapping of its co-founder David Balland in January 2025, the first episode in a series of crypto-kidnappings.
And MiCA makes exit easy. An approval obtained in a single Member State is enough to serve the twenty-seven, and nothing obliges a platform to keep its headquarters in Paris to sell to French customers.
The bond markets have already decided. Friday October 16, the ten-year OAT closed at 4.79% compared to 3.42% for the German Bund, a difference of 137.4 basis points. It was 104 points on September 22. This OAT-Bund spread measures the premium demanded for holding French rather than German debt.
Budget 2027: the tax on stablecoins drowned in a survival vote
In this context, Tuesday October 20, the deputies vote by solemn ballot on the revenue part of the finance bill. The Finance Committee rejected it on October 9 by 31 votes to 3. The text targets a deficit of 5.0% of GDP in 2027, compared to 5.4% in 2026.
Of its 88 articles, most concern all households. According to Bercy, the income tax scale is increased by 2.1%, the 10% reduction for retirees capped at 3,000 euros compared to 4,439 today and the tax on car insurance increased from 18% to 18.9%.
The tax on stablecoins is contained in an amendment, I-3898 by Nicolas Sansu (GDR), adopted at the meeting on October 16. It subjects the conversion of a cryptocurrency into a MiCA-compliant stablecoin to the flat tax of 31.4% from January 1, 2027. A rejection on Tuesday would prevail with the rest, like the 2026 budget swept away by 404 votes to 1 on November 21, 2025.
The socialist group tabled a motion for prior rejection. Raphaël Glucksmann, presidential candidate from the socialist primary, warns that “if the text does not move, there will be censorship”. La France insoumise will file a motion of censure in the event of 49.3. Roland Lescure does not rule out ordinances, possible if the budget is not adopted by December 17.
