France occupies a singular and carefully constructed position in global deep-sea mining governance: it is simultaneously the country that has enacted the world’s strongest domestic legal prohibition on deep-sea mineral extraction, and one of the active exploration contractors in international seabed areas managed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA). Understanding this apparent contradiction requires understanding the difference between France’s sovereign EEZ and the international seabed — and understanding France’s long-term strategic calculation about critical minerals, ocean ecosystems, and technological development.

The 2021 Legal Prohibition: What It Covers

France’s loi Climat et Résilience, enacted in August 2021, included a provision prohibiting:

1. The granting of any new exploration license for mineral resources on the seabed of France’s territorial waters (0-12 nautical miles) and Exclusive Economic Zone (0-200 nautical miles).
2. Any commercial extraction of seabed mineral resources within France’s EEZ and territorial seas.

The prohibition covers France’s 11.03 million km² EEZ — the second-largest in the world. It applies to polymetallic nodule fields in French Polynesia’s waters, cobalt-rich crust deposits on Pacific seamounts, and any other seabed mineral resources within French jurisdiction.

The law included an explicit statement of intent: the prohibition reflects France’s recognition that deep-sea ecosystems are of extraordinary ecological importance, that the science of deep-sea ecology is insufficiently advanced to assess extraction impacts adequately, and that the precautionary principle must apply. The provision was championed by French marine scientists — led by IFREMER researchers and oceanographers at the CNRS Station Biologique de Roscoff — as well as environmental organizations and ultimately adopted with cross-party political support.

France became the first sovereign nation to enact a statutory prohibition on deep-sea mining in its own EEZ, preceding subsequent calls from Pacific Island nations and international environmental organizations for broader moratoria.

What the Law Does Not Cover: The International Seabed

The critical nuance: France’s 2021 prohibition applies exclusively to French sovereign maritime territory. It has no legal force over the international seabed — the vast ocean floor beyond any national EEZ, legally defined as the “Common Heritage of Mankind” and governed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a UN body established under UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea).

IFREMER holds two deep-sea exploration contracts in the ISA-governed international seabed:

Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) — Polymetallic Nodules: IFREMER has held an exploration contract in the CCZ — the vast equatorial Pacific zone between Hawaii and the Baja California peninsula — since the ISA contract system was established. The CCZ contains what are estimated to be the world’s largest accessible concentrations of polymetallic nodules: potato-sized concretions of manganese, nickel, copper, cobalt, and rare earth elements on the abyssal plain at depths of 4,000-5,500m. IFREMER’s CCZ contract gives France exploration rights over a designated area and entitles France to preferential commercial access in any future ISA extraction framework. The contract requires IFREMER to conduct research — including environmental baseline studies of deep-sea ecosystems in the contract area — a requirement France treats seriously.

Mid-Atlantic Ridge — Seafloor Massive Sulfides: IFREMER also holds an ISA exploration contract on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, targeting seafloor massive sulfide (SMS) deposits — mineral-rich precipitates from hydrothermal vents. These deposits contain copper, zinc, gold, and silver. IFREMER’s SMS contract is oriented more toward scientific exploration than commercial prospect development, given the extraordinary biodiversity concentrated at active hydrothermal vent sites.

France at the ISA: Regulatory Influence

France is among the most active national participants in ISA governance. France’s position at the ISA is consistent: support for the highest possible environmental standards for any future deep-sea mining regime, insistence on demonstrably adequate environmental baseline data before any commercial exploitation license can be issued, and strong preference for a precautionary approach in the face of scientific uncertainty.

France has consistently supported proposals for “preservation reference zones” — areas of the international seabed that would be permanently closed to any mining, providing comparison sites for assessing mining impacts against undisturbed ecosystems.

In the 2023 ISA negotiations around adopting a “Mining Code” (the international regulatory framework for commercial deep-sea mining), France supported delay in finalization pending resolution of outstanding environmental uncertainty — a position aligned with Germany, Sweden, Chile, and a coalition of Pacific Island states that collectively blocked final adoption. France’s position was that the precautionary principle required demonstrating that impacts are manageable before authorizing extraction, not assuming they are manageable in order to enable extraction.

This contrasts with states like Norway, which opened its own Arctic continental shelf to deep-sea mining exploration in early 2024 — a decision France’s Minister for Ecological Transition explicitly criticized as premature. It also contrasts with China, which has multiple ISA exploration contracts and has been among the advocates for faster ISA framework completion to enable commercial extraction.

The Critical Minerals Tension

France’s principled position on deep-sea mining sits in growing tension with the country’s critical minerals strategy. The energy transition — electric vehicles, wind turbines, batteries — requires vast quantities of cobalt, nickel, manganese, and rare earth elements. France’s aggressive EV and battery strategy under France 2030 (with ACC, Verkor, and Renault all building battery manufacturing capacity) makes France increasingly dependent on imported critical minerals from Congo (cobalt), Indonesia and Philippines (nickel), and China (rare earths).

Deep-sea polymetallic nodules — if mined at scale from the CCZ and equivalent zones — contain enough cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese to supply global demand for decades. The strategic case for accessing these resources is real. France’s official response: the solution to critical mineral dependency lies in diversifying land-based supply chains (through agreements with producing countries and recycling programs), in reducing critical mineral intensity through technology innovation (solid-state batteries, cobalt-free cathode chemistry), and ultimately in terrestrial or aquaculture solutions — not in environmentally risky deep-sea extraction.

France 2030 supports critical mineral recycling through its circular economy funding, reducing France’s long-term dependency on primary mineral extraction regardless of source.

France 2030’s Research Investment: Understanding Before Deciding

France 2030 funds deep-sea research explicitly designed to improve the scientific basis for future decision-making — both on the conservation side (understanding ecosystem sensitivity and recovery capacity) and on the technology side (developing extraction technologies that could in theory minimize impact).

IFREMER’s France 2030-funded deep-sea ecology programs are documenting biodiversity at nodule field sites in unprecedented detail — cataloging the macro- and meiofauna associated with polymetallic nodule ecosystems, measuring ecological connectivity between abyssal plain communities, and modeling recovery trajectories from disturbance events. This research serves France’s regulatory policy interests at the ISA regardless of whether France ever intends to mine.

The technological research strand — France 2030’s support for underwater robotics and AUV development at IFREMER — has dual-use potential: the same AUV platforms designed for scientific seafloor mapping could in principle support selective nodule sampling or low-impact extraction pilots. France’s position is that technological development for understanding does not imply technological development for extraction, but the distinction becomes harder to maintain as robotic capability advances.

The Comparison with Norway: A Policy Contrast

Norway’s 2024 decision to open its Arctic continental shelf to deep-sea mining exploration crystallizes the policy divergence within Europe. Norway — also a world-class ocean science nation, home to the largest private deep-sea mining company (The Metals Company backed Norwegian investment) — calculated that the economic development opportunity and strategic mineral sovereignty interests outweigh the environmental risks, at least at the exploration phase.

France’s environmental ministry explicitly criticized Norway’s decision. French officials argued that Norway’s move undermined the multilateral progress toward a precautionary ISA framework, creating a race dynamic where other countries feel pressure to act before standards are established.

The contrast is instructive: both France and Norway have sophisticated marine science, strong environmental traditions, and significant strategic interests in ocean resources. The different outcomes reflect different weighings of economic opportunity versus precautionary risk — and perhaps different assessments of whether the ISA multilateral process will eventually produce adequate protections.

Long-Term Strategic Position

France’s deep-sea mining position is best understood as a temporal strategy rather than a permanent stance. The 2021 legal prohibition on EEZ extraction does not prohibit the French government from revising the legal framework in the future if scientific and technological conditions change sufficiently. IFREMER’s continued research and its ISA exploration contracts preserve France’s option value — the right to participate in any future deep-sea mining regime, with decades of scientific data and technological capability backing that participation.

France’s bet: that by the time deep-sea mining technology is genuinely capable of low-impact selective extraction, the international regulatory framework will be stronger, France’s exploration knowledge will be a competitive asset, and critical mineral alternatives (recycling, reduced intensity technology, diversified land supply) will have reduced the pressure for emergency deep-sea extraction. If that bet is correct, France will have protected extraordinary ocean ecosystems while maintaining strategic optionality. If the bet is wrong — if other nations extract deep-sea minerals without adequate regulation while France holds back — France will have foregone both economic opportunity and strategic influence over practices it opposes.