ConnexionFrance: Green campaigner backs fracking

SAILOR and environmentalist Maud Fontenoy has come out in favour of fracking. 

Just days after Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg said he was trying to convince President François Hollande to overturn a ban on experimental drilling for shale gas, Ms Fontenoy has said in an interview with Le Parisien that the controversial process of extracting natural gas from shale rock deep within the earth would cut energy costs in France. 

Mr Montebourg last week appeared to show his support for the shale gas industry and of the need to develop shale gas exploration. President Hollande last year banned all drilling for it on French soil. 

Pointing to the rise of fracking in America, Ms Fontenoy said: “The exploitation of shale gas across the Atlantic has become an ecological asset for the United States, significantly reducing their consumption of coal, and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by 450 million tonnes over the last five years.  MORE