Breakdown of the 5 geographical zones targeted by the mineral resources inventory.
© BRGM
As the energy and digital transitions gather pace, critical metals such as lithium, graphite and tungsten have become essential components in the production of low-carbon technologies. To meet these challenges, France launched an update of its mineral resources inventory in February 2025. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the potential of the country's subsurface in order to reinforce France's industrial sovereignty.
Building on the foundations of a previous inventory
The new programme is not starting from scratch. It will build on the work carried out by BRGM between 1975 and 1995, at a time when there were already geopolitical tensions over energy and raw materials as a result of the first oil crisis.
This initial inventory focused mainly on non-ferrous metals and metals for alloys, such as copper, lead and zinc. Explorations were conducted over nearly 125,000km², mainly in very old mountain ranges (Massif Central, Alps, Pyrénées, etc.). The programme identified over a hundred areas of interest, three of which were exploited.
Today, this knowledge provides an invaluable foundation from which to launch new mineral explorations targeting new needs.
A fresh approach to meet today's challenges
In this age of green technologies and the European Critical Raw Materials Act, the new inventory is based on a more diversified, in-depth and innovative approach. It covers around sixty elements – compared with about twenty in the first inventory – some of which were not part of the initial campaigns or were not effectively detected, such as lithium, gallium and germanium.
The new programme will last five years and target five priority regions with high geological potential: the western Massif Central, the Morvan-Brévenne area, the Vosges, the Occitanie-Cévennes region and the northern part of French Guiana. In Continental France, the areas selected either have known resources, the contours – or possible extensions – of which are still poorly defined, or clear potential in terms of critical and strategic metals. In French Guiana, the northern part of the region has a wide variety of minerals, including gold, copper, lead, zinc, lithium, niobium and tantalum.
The project will draw on state-of-the-art technologies, using advanced acquisition and analysis methods, notably in the fields of geophysics and geochemistry, in order to establish a detailed three-dimensional picture of the subsurface and identify targets at depth. For example, airborne geophysics based on non-invasive imaging technologies carried on board a plane or suspended under a helicopter, making it possible to rapidly acquire data over an entire region.
Such campaigns will enable us to identify subsurface mineral resources more accurately, while remaining as non-invasive as possible.
