France to stop granting oil exploration licences - energy minister

PARIS (Reuters) - French energy minister Nicolas Hulot said on Friday the government planned to present a draft law this autumn that would stop granting licences for oil and gas exploitation in France and overseas territories. "There will be no new licence granted for exploration of hydrocarbons, we will pass the law this autumn," Hulot said on his Twitter account following an interview on BFM-TV, Hulot, an environmental campaigner before he became a minister last month, also said diesel and petrol taxes would converge in the not-too-distant future, as laid out in plans by the previous Socialist government. (Reporting by Maya Nikolaeva and Cyril Camu; editing by Andrew Callus)