The government of recently elected President François Hollande held a high-level environmental conference over the weekend in which it attempted to make a clear break from its predecessor, reiterating its pledge to significantly lower nuclear’s contribution, and promising to uphold a ban on hydraulic fracturing – known as fracking – for at least the next five years.
Hollande and Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault also paid repeated tributes to the virtues of renewables, with the president saying wind and solar hold “huge potential”, and adding that he “regrets” the setbacks both technologies have faced in France in recent years.
But
