Resources for France Plan
The Plan ressources pour la France (Resources for France Plan) is a five-year planning policy designed to characterise and reduce the reliance on natural resources for production and growth.
The policy is embedded in a 2015 national framework strategy, the Loi relative à la transition énergétique pour la croissance verte (Energy transition for green growth law). It is also part of an effort to regulate and develop a circular economy. The Resources for France plan discusses minerals amongst other natural resources. France is not a major producer of critical minerals, but has identified its increasing needs for the energy transition and the digitalisation since the 2010s. Critical minerals are included in the plan because of France’s strong reliance on imports.
The plan calls for more comprehensive mapping of the needs for critical minerals regarding the energy transition by the Comité pour les métaux stratégiques (Committee for strategic metals, COMES) and the Bureau de recherches géologiques et minières (Geological and Mining Research Bureau, BRGM).
The plan also highlights recycling as a potential production method for developed countries such as France. It calls for more research on the topic of secondary mineral resources.
Finally the plan raises the idea of including sustainability criteria in the production chain of critical minerals. Recycling and reusing is seen as an alternative mechanism to ensure a local, sustainable and responsible supply. However, the plan does highlight the need for a European initiative on social and environmental criteria for mining, in order to preserve industrial competitiveness.
This five-year plan contributes to policy-support of the circular economy. It considers not only the economic and security ramifications of critical minerals, but also their social and environmental impacts. This approach is concurrently developed at the national and regional scale: some objectives detailed in the Resources for France plan are also present in the 2020 Circular economy action plan adopted by the European Commission. Notably, regulation of batteries and their minerals was proposed on 10 December 2020.
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