Victory! France supports a ban on deep-sea mining

07 November 2022

After speaking out against deep-sea mining at an “intimate” event alongside the United Nations conference in Lisbon, President Emmanuel Macron officially reaffirmed France’s position at the COP27, which opened today in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

Last June, BLOOM and hundreds of thousands of citizens rallied together to urge Emmanuel Macron to oppose deep-sea mining. This method consists of deploying devastating machines on the deep seabed in order to extract the minerals used in the production of electronic devices.

🚨 Citizen alert! @EmmanuelMacron has a project that will destroy the ocean, marine animals and the climate, but here, at the UN Ocean conference in Lisbon, he poses as a champion of the planet!

Read. This is urgent. We need you.

— Claire Nouvian (@clairenouvianEN) June 29, 2022

The pressure paid off: on 30 June, while attending an event alongside the United Nations conference in Lisbon, the President stated that he wanted to “create the legal framework to stop deep-sea mining“. Nevertheless, questions remained: why did the President not specifically come out in support of an international moratorium on deep-sea mining, as Pacific states such as Fiji, Palau, Samoa and the Solomon Islands had already done a few days before him?

Emmanuel Macron’s new statement at the COP27 podium clears up some of the ambiguity. During his speech, he stated that he wanted to remain “faithful” to his word: “France supports the ban on all deep-sea mining and will bring it up in international forums. I stand by this position.”

This announcement was made as members of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) Council were gathering in Kingston, Jamaica. Negotiations on the proposed regulations for future deep-sea mining licences are currently underway and will continue until 11 November, before resuming in March 2023.

Emmanuel Macron’s declaration is already a victory that confirms the power of citizen action. We will continue to be vigilant about its implementation.