French Minister for Industrial Renewal Arnaud Montebourg wants to re-open the fracking debate in France, where the controversial method for extracting shale gas remains outlawed for environmental reasons, reports FRANCE 24.
According to weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchainé this week, Montebourg believes that so-called “clean fracking”, using treated non-flammable propane gas rather than water, is more environmentally friendly.
But France’s ruling socialists remain deeply split on the issue of fracking, by which pressurised liquid is used to fracture underground rock formations in order to release gas, a process environmentalists say can contaminate ground water and even cause earthquakes.
French President François Hollande has promised that fracking would remain banned in France while he is president, and the country's Green Party is vehemently opposed to legalising a process which French energy giant Total is championing enthusiastically in the UK.
Questions remain as to whether using non-flammable liquid propane is any cleaner or safer than using high-pressure water, or whether it will bring the same economic benefits to France as it has to the USA, where the price of gas has tumbled since fracking began.
Thomas Porcher, economist and professor in primary resource management at the ESG MS Management School, in Paris gives his perspective.
Read more of this report from FRANCE 24.