France persists and signs: it wants to slow down the race to exploit the minerals lying in the depths of the oceans. This time, it is the National Assembly which affirms it in a resolution adopted in a rare impetus: Tuesday, January 17, by 215 votes for and 56 against, the majority of the deputies invites “the government to defend a moratorium on seabed mining”.
Why deprive yourself of these strategic metals: copper, nickel, manganese, which the industry could need? Because going to extract them from deep depths – in other words, from areas “the least accessible on the planet, and therefore the least known on earth”, according to the explanatory memorandum to the resolution – constitutes not only a major risk for the safeguarding of ocean ecosystems, but also with regard to an environment which stores a large quantity of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities. It is therefore a question of avoiding “disastrous consequences”.
Renaissance, MoDem, Socialist Party, La France insoumise, Europe-Ecologie-Les Verts: in this session of « niche transpartisane », the parliamentarians quoted Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, redoubled declarations of good intentions with regard to the protection of the ocean, and recalled all that the planet owes to this great regulator of the climate. Apart from Les Républicains and the National Rally, nine political groups have therefore chosen to join the initiative of the ecologist deputy Nicolas Thierry (Gironde).
Lead by example
For some, the declarations of the President of the Republic, who has, twice in recent months, expressed his opposition to the exploitation of deep seas, counted in their choice.
The images circulating on the Internet of a ship spitting up an uninterrupted stream of black sediment from the top of its hull played a role. This video dates from the campaign of the Canadian company The Metal Company, which obtained a “test permit” in September 2022 to fetch just over 3,000 tonnes of polymetallic nodules 4,000 meters below the surface of the Pacific.
“There cannot be mining without irreversible damage to marine ecosystems”concluded Hervé Berville, Secretary of State for the Sea. “consistency and credibility”, France, he said in substance, cannot demand a moratorium on these deleterious industrial activities on the high seas, without setting an example in its own waters. An underwater exploitation demonstrator project has therefore been terminated.
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