The mining code under the light of shale gas

The authors analyze the evolution and challenges of the French legal context, notably the French mining code, in relationship with the emergence of the issue of shale gas exploitation. They first draw lessons from the law published in 2011 which focused on the use of the hydraulic fracturing technique to forbid any non conventional hydrocarbon exploitation. They comment the content of different legal or official texts which have been published since then, and which notably evoked the use of other exploration and exploitation techniques and weakened the 2011 law. In a second part, they discuss political issues such as the influence of the European framework on the energy policy, and the integration of mining, energy and land planning policies which puts the mining code into question