And as the article states: "it is largely symbolic since oil and gas produced in France accounts for just 1 percent of domestic consumption" I don't understand

And as the article states: "it is largely symbolic since oil and gas produced in France accounts for just 1 percent of domestic consumption" I don't understand who/what this "ban" is for actually. If the current oil/gas production is that ridiculous, ban it in 5 years, won't change much anyway, but that would make a nice statement/publicity. Doing this in 20+ years, why? Also, if they had taken the "matter" seriously, they could have banned all refineries as well. but that would be a risky move, Total is quite large in France's industry (actually n°2 by revenue - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classement_des_plus_grandes_entreprises_françaises_en_2016 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classement_des_plus_grandes_en...). On a positive note however, this may be a small part of a bigger plan: Paris seems to have plans for a ban on petrol cars by 2030 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/paris-ban-petrol-cars-city-2030-pollution-crackdown/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/paris-ban-petrol-...) and France seems to have plans for a ban on petrol cars by 2040 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/06/france-ban-petrol-diesel-vehicles-2040/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/06/france-ban-petrol...)