Social perception of unconventional gas extraction on the outskirts of a former coal-mining area in Northeast France

The elements that influence the social acceptance of subsurface resource exploitation are analysed for a project engaged in unconventional gas production in Lorraine, a former mining area of France which now has strong unemployment. Champions of this project portray it as an opportunity to revitalise the economy in this hard-pressed region. Yet, social acceptability remains a key issue, particularly among people who live at the edge of the former mining zone and are not familiar with underground resource extraction. We examine the “social representations” of the population as well as investigate the roots of the contrasting representations we found in terms of the “distance to the object” concept that we introduce. We conclude that social acceptance must be considered both in terms of spatiality (distance) and temporality (historical).