LA Times: Pressure builds against France's ban on fracking
Deep beneath the City of Light lies what some believe to be an energy bonanza ripe for harvest.
If the rosy forecasts are correct, France is sitting on one of the biggest deposits of shale gas in Western Europe, enough to supply the country for decades and even some neighboring ones as well. French companies such as energy giant Total already boast the know-how for conducting the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, needed to extract the natural gas.
There's just one hitch: Fracking is forbidden in France. And the current government has pledged to keep it that way.