"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)