Each year, British Petroleum publishes statistics about energy production and consumption in every country. These statistics are an authority because of their accuracy and they allow us to confront political messages with reality in these highly important issues. The 2017 publication is especially interesting since it occurs in a troubled environment caused the retreat from the Paris Agreement decided by Donald Trump and just after the extension of the OPEC deal about the limitation of oil production by State members. The BP report brings elements of answers to these many questions which are on debate, especially in France.

The first ...

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You don’t appoint Rex Tillerson, the Exxon C.E.O by chance to lead the State Department. Oil and fossil fuels have always played an important role in American policy, when it comes to price issues or relations with producing countries, as it was during the Bush era, both the father and his son, who started their carrier in Texas, the most important producing State. Donald Trump is reviving the tradition. But the stakes are different because the world today became more complex, American production has evolved and the Middle East is put to fire and sword.

During the ...

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Energy transitions issues have taken hold of the French presidential campaign. Some, like Jean-Luc Mélenchon or Benoît Hamon are reducing it to the stigmatization of nuclear energy, they propose to abandon through the closing of power units in safe technical condition. Others, like Emmanuel Macron or François Fillon, propose a diversification of the electricity mix but are hostile to shale gas exploration. All of them think energy saving investments are the panacea to reduce unemployment, but without defining convincing financial solutions, due to the diversity of the situations.

France is not an isolated case. The American presidential ...

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