The French Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing and the Attempts to Reverse It: Social Mobilization, Professional Forums and Coalition Strategies
Résumé
In France, the French Minister of Environment issued three first licenses involving the exploration of shale gas with hydraulic fracturing in March 2010. The large-scale diffusion of Gasland\textemdasha documentary demonstrating the negative consequences of hydraulic fracturing\textemdashas well as an efficient strategy of social and political mobilization allowed a coalition of anti-fracturing policy actors to get a ban on this extraction technique in July 2011. However, the ban discredited the entire unconventional hydrocarbon industry, which galvanized a coalition of pro-exploration policy actors. Since 2011, various politico-administrative committees (or ``professional forums'') were created to discuss on shale hydrocarbons. The design of those committees and the strategic participation of proexploration actors have not reversed the ban but led to incremental changes which should facilitate hydrocarbon exploration.