France's lower house Wednesday approved a bill to ban drilling for shale gas and oil through the process known as hydraulic fracturing and canceled the rights granted to companies to seek unconventional hydrocarbons.

The bill submitted by legislator Christian Jacob from Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party was approved by 287-186.

Shale oil deposits are pockets of oil trapped in pores of sedimentary rock called shale. Miners use a process known as hydraulic fracturing--or fracking--in which water, sand and chemicals are pumped into the ground to crack open the rock and force the oil back to the surface.

-By Inti Landauro, Dow Jones Newswires; +33 1 4017 1740; inti.landauro@dowjones.com

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