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France’s top finance sector watchdog, the French Financial Markets Authority (AMF), has warned digital asset companies operating in the country that they must obtain a license under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation by June 30 or exit the country; those who fail to do so could be prosecuted.
Last week, AMF President Marie-Anne Barbat-Layani told a press event in Paris that digital asset companies that fail to obtain a license by the deadline must have “orderly wind-down plans” to offload customers and end their operations, according to a Reuters report.
After MiCA came fully into force in December 2024, crypto asset service providers (CASPs) operating in the EU could continue to operate while they apply for MiCA authorization for up to 18 months after the implementation date or until their license is granted or refused, whichever is sooner—this put the final deadline at June 30, 2026.
Under MiCA, CASPs must apply for licenses from a National Competent Authority (NCA), the relevant regulator of an EU country, which they can then use to operate throughout the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes all countries in the 27-nation bloc, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.
In January 2026, the AMF said that almost a third of digital asset companies in the country without an EU license had still not told the regulator whether they intended to obtain one. Based on the AMF president’s comments this week, it appears the situation has not improved much.
“It’s becoming very, very urgent to finalize the licenses applications,” Barbat-Layani told journalists on Thursday.
She went on to warn that CASPs that have not secured licenses by the EU’s deadline will be put on blacklists and could face enforcement action, including prosecution, if they continue to seek EU customers without authorization.
Soft touch regulators
Barbat-Layani also addressed a controversy that’s been rumbling on since last summer, over the perceived lack of uniformity and rigor with which some EU regulators are assessing applications and handing out licenses, particularly “smaller” nations.
In July 2025, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s financial markets regulator and supervisor, published the results of a review into how the MiCA licensing process was being managed in Malta, after a June 2025 Reuters report cited a “senior regulatory official” who questioned how one of the smallest countries in the EU, with fewer staff and resources than some of its bigger peers, could approve so many licenses so quickly, whilst maintaining all due diligence.
The ESMA report on Malta found that the country’s regulator, the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), “should have been more thorough” and that the authorization process had “timing” issues.
Similar concerns were raised about Luxembourg’s financial regulator, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), after it appeared to be issuing licenses at a faster rate than many better-resourced EU regulators.
Naturally, this didn’t sit well with some of the larger EU nations, with France’s AMF suggesting, in a September 2025 interview with Reuters, that it believed some digital asset companies were seeking out jurisdictions with more lenient licensing standards. The regulator even threatened to block some firms licensed in other EU countries from operating domestically if it felt their application process wasn’t up to AMF standards.
In response to such concerns, in October 2025, ESMA chair Verena Ross revealed—in an interview with the Financial Times—that the European Commission (EC), the executive branch of the EU, was developing plans to bring several sectors, including digital assets, stock exchanges, and clearing houses, under ESMA’s supervision and away from individual state regulators.
On December 4, 2025, it followed through on this plan by adopting the “Market Integration and Supervision” package, aimed at removing barriers to an integrated capital market arising from differences in regulatory approaches, as well as ensuring that passporting functions operate efficiently to facilitate operations across member states. Centralizing EU digital asset supervision under ESMA was a part of the package.
The package is now making its way through the EU legislative process, and if passed into law, would likely include a 12–24 months transition period. In other words, it could be several years before ESMA takes the reins of digital asset regulation and licensing in the EU.
In the meantime, individual NCAs across the bloc are still granting licenses.
With this in mind, on Thursday, Barbat-Layani reiterated that France would be prepared to block the passporting of licenses granted by other countries if it did not agree with that country’s decision.
However, she reportedly added that this would not be the desired result, as it would represent a “serious collective failure.”
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