Cryptocurrencies emerged in the French public debate less than a decade ago. That has been enough time for the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party to adopt, as on many other issues, the most contradictory positions. In 2016, Marine Le Pen promised to ban virtual currencies (including bitcoin), which she claimed were promoted by an alliance of the "ruling elite" and the "powerful Wall Street investment banking lobby." In 2022, Le Pen sought to "regulate" them. In 2025, Le Pen is now proposing to produce them.

During a visit to the Flamanville nuclear power plant in Normandy on March 11, the three-time presidential candidate expressed her support for using surplus electricity generated by reactors to "mine" bitcoin. The plan would involve installing powerful computers at the sites of French energy giant EDF to perform complex calculations, which, repeated numerous times, would contribute to the secure digital chain, or blockchain, behind the technology, in exchange for payment in newly created bitcoins (currently trading at over €100,000).

"It is a secure and extremely profitable solution," said RN lawmaker Aurélien Lopez-Liguori, who was tasked in July with drafting the idea into a bill. "Our logic is the opposite of the Greens. For them, the most environmentally friendly energy is that which is not produced; for us, it is the energy that is not wasted."

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