In the Limousin countryside (on the west side of south-central France), at the end of a road that zigzags between the north of Dordogne and the south of Haute-Vienne, lies the old Bourneix gold mine, shut down since the departure of Areva, which extracted 25 metric tons of precious metal between 1988 and 2002.

In a decree published in the Journal Officiel on February 16, the French economy ministry issued an exclusive five-year polymetallic prospecting permit to Aurelius Ressources, the French subsidiary of British operator Aurelius Resources, covering an area of 39.19 square kilometers straddling the two departments. The "Nouveau Bourneix" permit authorizes searching for gold, silver, antimony, tungsten, lithium, nickel, bismuth, cobalt, platinum, and rare-earth elements. Gold has been mined there since ancient times.

"The potential is clear," said Dominique Fournier, a geologist recruited by Aurelius Ressources to oversee the exploration work. "Because, beyond gold, we can assume the presence of several other metals that our society needs to function. It remains to be seen whether or not extraction will be economically viable." Three other permits had previously been issued in the neighboring area of Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche (western France).

This multitude of exploration authorizations is worrisome to part of the population. Consequences for residents' health, damage to the landscape, tensions over water use, devaluation of local property... "There's no shortage of reasons to worry," said Corinne Bodin, 62, who recently moved to Le Chalard, the town home to the old Bourneix mine, where she met us near deserted buildings and water-filled settling basins. Alongside Myriam Gantier, 43, also newly settled in Jumilhac-le-Grand, Dordogne, she is a member of the Stop Mines 87 non-profit.

Three weeks of consultation

Should this be seen as a consequence of the critical raw materials regulation adopted by the European Union in December 2023, which sets the share of the critical materials extracted from European sites at 10% by 2030? The application for an exclusive research permit filed by Aurelius Ressources in April 2022 took 20 months to process. It had taken the Haute-Vienne prefecture two years to investigate the three permit applications filed in October 2020 around Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche by Compagnie des Mines Arédiennes, a subsidiary of the Canadian group Eldorado Gold Corporation.

"We're very surprised that the decision to grant the permit [for the 'Nouveau Bourneix'] was made so quickly," said Gantier, who only knew of the public consultation on the economy ministry website from June 14 to July 12, 2023.

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