France's last coal mine closed in 2004. Plans to open a new open-pit coal mine were kicked around for several years afterward but never realized.

In 2014 France's four (4) remaining coal-fired power plants, operating on imported coal, generated 14.8 million tonnes CO2eq, or 3.2% of French GHG emissions. The government would have implemented the tax and pushed them further along the route to closure or conversion to natural gas, but president Francois Hollande is deeply unpopular and his government faces an election next spring and is fearful of any regional vote losses, so shelved it.