France holds a significant place among the European countries and is rich in natural resources including uranium, coal, iron ore, bauxite, zinc, antimony, arsenic, potash, feldspar, gypsum, and fluorspar. There are hardly any major mining operations in mainland France.
Most people associate French culture with Paris, which is a center of fashion, cuisine, art and architecture, but life outside of the City of Lights is very different and varies by region. France doesn't just have culture; the word "culture" actually comes from France.
Given its varied geography both in metropolitan Europe and throughout the world, France has an enormous amount of natural resources including coal, iron ore, bauxite, zinc, uranium, antimony, arsenic, gypsum, timber, arable land, fish, gold deposits, petroleum, and clay.
France's Natural Resources. Although diverse, the natural resources of France are relatively limited in quantity. France has some coal, iron ores, bauxite, and uranium; but the coal veins are deep and difficult to work and are unsuitable for use in the manufacture of steel.
France derives about 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy, due to a long-standing policy based on energy security. Government policy is to reduce this to 50% by 2035. France is the world's largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over €3 billion per year from this.
Trade represents more than 60% of the country's GDP (World Bank, 2018). France exports essentially aircrafts, vehicles, pharmaceutical products, food products (wine), hydrocarbons and electronic components. The country imports many consumer goods, vehicles, hydrocarbons and pharmaceutical products.
The two major auto-manufacturing firms are Renault and Peugeot, which acquired automaker Citroen in 1974. The French automobile industry was once located mainly in the Paris metropolitan region, but there are now major facilities in Alsace and Lorraine in the northeast and in the western Paris Basin.
A majority of the land in France is used for agricultural purposes (52 percent), of which 36 percent is used for crops and 16 percent for grassland. In 2018, 9 percent of the metropolitan territory was artificial soil, i.e., soil transformed for infrastructure construction.
Searchable List of All Coal Exporting Countries in 2019
| Rank | Exporter | 2018-9 |
|---|
| 1. | Australia | -5.9% |
| 2. | Indonesia | +4.1% |
| 3. | Russia | -6.1% |
| 4. | United States | -19.2% |
Anthracite, also known as hard coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the highest ranking of coals.
Functioning deep mine and opencast coal mines in the United Kingdom (UK) 2000-2019. The number of deep coal mines has been steadily falling from 33 in 2000, while the number of opencast sites, which remain more common, has varied a lot more.
As of December 31, 2016, estimates of total world proved recoverable reserves of coal were about 1,144 billion short tons (or about 1.14 trillion short tons), and five countries had about 75% of the world's proved coal reserves.
The EU has over 300 power plants (as of July 2016) with 738 separate generating units. These are not evenly distributed across the individual member states and those most reliant on coal are Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Romania.
European countries such as Austria and Hungary have also made official commitments, while Belgium leads the way, having been coal-free since 2016.
The major agricultural products that place France among the top producers in the world market are sugar beets, wine, milk, beef and veal, cereals, and oilseeds. Producing 29 million metric tons of sugar beets, France leads the EU.
