The President of the Republic inaugurated on Wednesday in Échassières, in Allier, the lithium mine of the Imerys company, which should ultimately make it possible to equip 700,000 electric cars annually. A project which is among the 150 “major strategic projects” (GPS) benefiting from all the attention of the State and local authorities.

Published on: 04/22/2026 - 8:20 p.m.

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After a Council of Ministers relocated to Montluçon and a crowd, Emmanuel Macron inaugurated, Wednesday April 22 in Échassières, in Allier, the new lithium mine of the Imerys company. A vast project based on one of the world's main lithium ore deposits which should make it possible, from 2030, to produce 34,000 tonnes per year of lithium hydroxide and equip 700,000 electric cars annually.

“This is exactly the meaning of industrial history that we must do,” affirmed Emmanuel Macron in the middle of his career, defending at length the “coherence of this decade” that he spent at the Élysée seeking the reduction of European strategic dependencies.

Also readLithium, the white gold of the energy transition

The project, called “Emili”, is among the 150 “major strategic projects” (GPS) benefiting from all the attention of the State and local authorities, an initiative announced in November by the president during the first “Choose France – Edition France” summit and formally launched in January.

“Notre-Dame de Paris method”

Half supported by SMEs and mid-sized companies, these 150 projects are spread across 63 departments, for a cumulative investment of 71 billion euros, and cover "the entire strategic industrial spectrum", according to the Élysée: agri-food, data centers, biofuels, batteries, health, aeronautics, defense...

To accelerate them, "it's the Notre-Dame de Paris method", pleaded Emmanuel Macron: "An identified project, a clear chain of command, people to whom we report and record deadlines that we must meet."

The reconstruction of the venerable Paris Cathedral serves as an example to follow in terms of simplification and acceleration of procedures, just like the 2024 Olympic Games, which were preceded by a simplification law.

“Nothing justifies that we are a nation which knows how to rebuild Notre-Dame in five years” and which “sometimes takes more than five years to carry out an industrial project or to build a henhouse”, apart from “a form of good-naturedness”, exclaimed the president, as he did when receiving mayors on April 16 at the Élysée.

In his eyes, it will therefore be “150 industrial cathedrals” and a “twin fight” in favor of agricultural projects.

“Massively reduce delays”

Concretely, the government intends to move forward vigorously thanks to the "simplification" law adopted last week in Parliament, but also thanks to a "contentious decree" for "strategic projects" taken this Wednesday, detailed the head of state.

To avoid appeals which "slow down" construction sites, disputes will be "unified" at the level of the Administrative Court of Appeal, which is supposed to save "one year" on deadlines, he explained.

Second point, the development of “turnkey devices” to identify and provide ready-to-use “economic land” to SMEs and mid-sized companies that want to set up or expand.

Finally, Emmanuel Macron, whose ecological record is often judged to be mixed, also said he wanted to "simplify environmental assessments", by using "common sense" to "massively reduce delays". “Not to reduce environmental requirements, but simply to acknowledge the fact that we have a lot of procedures,” he assured, entrusting a mission in this direction to the Minister for Ecological Transition, Mathieu Lefèvre.

Also read: Budget cuts: ecology once again sacrificed in the name of savings?

In the midst of busy international news, between the reception of the Lebanese Prime Minister at the Élysée and a trip to Cyprus and Greece, and while his government is struggling between the consequences of the war in the Middle East and budgetary credit freezes, the Head of State chaired the traditional weekly meeting of ministers from Montluçon on Wednesday.

"For the sake of sobriety", argued the presidency, only the ministers concerned by the sequence accompanied the Head of State and Sébastien Lecornu, namely Mathieu Lefèvre, Laurent Nunez (Interior), Roland Lescure (Economy), Annie Genevard (Agriculture), Françoise Gatel (Territorial planning), Sébastien Martin (Industry). The rest of the government participated in the Council of Ministers by videoconference from the Élysée.

With AFP

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