“In France, we don’t have oil, but we have lithium,” summarized Emmanuel Macron on October 26, 2022 on France 2. A reinterpretation of the famous slogan invented during the first oil shock, this time to announce the reopening of mines on French soil, the exploitation of which should make it possible to extract the materials entering the manufacturing of batteries, themselves necessary for the creation of an electric car sector in France. “It’s a sovereignty strategy, because we’re going to produce batteries,” added the head of state.
Since Covid-19 revealed the extent of the country’s dependence on foreigners in several critical industrial sectors, the notion of sovereignty has established itself in the public debate, and is now understood as the capacity to produce on French soil. It structures successive investment plans since the health crisis, notably France 2030, announced in October 2021 and endowed with 54 billion euros to accelerate the creation of strategic sectors on French soil – batteries, semiconductors, medicines, mini nuclear reactors…
Little highlighted at the time, the question of mining resources, at the heart of the ecological transition desired by the government, which is based on a vast movement to electrify the economy, came back to the fore a few years ago. a few weeks, during a trip by the Head of State to Toulouse. By relaunching the exploitation of mining resources such as lithium, nickel, cobalt on French soil, the executive intends to reduce its heavy dependence on the supply of critical metals, for which demand will explode in the years to come.
“It is the key to our sovereignty in a world where geopolitics is not going to become simpler,” repeated Emmanuel Macron on December 11. An offensive reinforced by the agenda of the European Union, which also seeks to secure sustainable access to critical raw materials for the ecological transition.
An attempt in 2014
From 2024, France will therefore “map everywhere on our soil our capacities to have mineral resources” For “increase our independence”, detailed Emmanuel Macron. All of this must be financed by a fund to which private investors are invited to contribute.
“It’s a tool for resilience, it would be too stupid not to look at whether we know how to exploit these resources in acceptable environmental conditions, indicates the office of Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the minister of energy transition. It is in this spirit that we have initiated the overhaul of the mining code. » And that the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM) was responsible for drawing up an inventory of existing resources – the last one dating “from the 1970s or 1980s”, we specify.
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