Lithium supply chains securitization: Sovereignty, energy transition, and public contestation in the EMILI project (France)

• Analyzes France’s EMILI lithium mine as a case of resource securitization. • Shows how sovereignty and green transition discourses justify extraction. • Identifies the interplay between geopolitical and economic securitization. • Reveals that exceptional measures can occur without full public consent. • Contributes to debates on extractive legitimacy and geoeconomic governance. This article examines the securitization of lithium supply through the case of the EMILI mining project in France. Drawing on securitization theory, it analyzes how state and corporate actors framed lithium extraction as essential to national sovereignty and economic resilience. Using primary data from the Commission nationale du débat public (CNDP) deliberations held between March and July 2024, the study traces how geopolitical and economic forms of securitization intersected to justify exceptional measures. The analysis shows that while these discursive strategies enabled the legitimation of political and administrative procedures, they failed to secure full public consent. In the EMILI lithium project, security framing enabled exceptional administrative and financial support to be authorized and accelerated even as public acceptance remained contested in the CNDP debate. The study contributes to broader debates on the politics of extractive legitimacy, the geoeconomization of the energy transition, and the tensions between sovereignty and environmental justice in contemporary mining governance.