Speaking at the opening of an OECD conference on cryptocurrencies, French economy and finance minister Bruno Le Maire said France would block the development of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency in Europe because it threatens the “monetary sovereignty” of governments.

“I want to be absolutely clear: in these conditions, we cannot authorise the development of Libra on European soil,” he said.

Facebook’s announcement of plans for its own cryptocurrency in June were met with concern by governments and critics of the social network. Over the past few years, the company’s reputation has been significantly damaged by a number of privacy scandals and over its role in the proliferation of fake news and extremist videos.

Due to launch in 2020, Libra although similar to Bitcoin and various other cryptocurrencies, is intended to have a more centralised infrastructure, with its control entrusted to a Swiss-based non-profit association. Its backers include major companies such as Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Lyft and Uber.

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Libra has been designed so that its users can make payments across Facebook’s numerous apps, including WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, which are used by billions of people globally.

Le Maire said, “The monetary sovereignty of countries is at stake from a possible privatisation of money … by a sole actor with more than 2 billion users on the planet,” he said. A major concern for governments is that Libra could facilitate people abandoning national currencies during periods of crisis and thus further complicate the government’s efforts to manage the economy.

Governments have also raised concerns over how Libra will be regulated and how it will comply with regulations related to money laundering and the finance of terrorism. However, Facebook has previously said it will delay Libra’s launch until it has satisfied the concerns of regulators around the world.

Chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Damian Collins told the Financial News, a month after the announcement of Libra: “To me, [Libra] suggests that Facebook’s almost trying to turn itself into its own country.

“It’s a global organisation that doesn’t have physical boundaries but basically has a global community who are solely under the oversight of Mark Zuckerberg.”

Dante Disparte, Libra’s head of policy and communications, said Le Marie’s comments, “further underscore the important” of working with regulatory bodies.

Speaking to The Independent, he said: “In the nearly three months since the intent to launch the Libra project was announced, we have become the world’s most scrutinised fintech effort.

“We welcome the scrutiny and have deliberately designed a long launch runway to have these conversations, educate stakeholders and incorporate their feedback in our design…We recognise that blockchain is an emerging technology, and that policymakers must carefully consider how its applications fit into their financial system policies.”