Despite being one of France’s most important discoveries in recent years, he couldn’t keep anything due to the country’s legislation. Michael Dupont is a simple French farmer with a farm on his property, but what he never expected to find there was a gold mine that would make him rich for the rest of his life. However, the man didn’t even have the opportunity to extract a single milligram, as the French state took everything from him.
The gold that Dupont found on his land is estimated to be worth £2.6 billion, which could be one of the biggest discoveries in France. As soon as the discovery was made, the news spread quickly, but he never imagined that even the government would find out about it. Michael Dupont had a fairly simple routine: the farmer, who lived in a mountain village in Auvergne, carried out typical farm tasks and then took long walks around the farm, which he knew like the back of his hand. However, one morning changed his life forever.
While on one of his routine walks, Dupont was attracted by a strange glint coming from a small stream. When he approached to examine it, he removed the earth to get a better look and found something completely unexpected: gold. After digging a little more, he realised that under that stream there was a deposit with several fragments of the material.
Why he didn’t keep the gold
Although the discovery would have guaranteed him financial security forever, Michael Dupont couldn’t keep a single piece of the gold he found. Rumours of gold in his garden reached the ears of the French government, so some members visited him and informed him that he couldn’t do anything with the treasure. This is because French law states that underground resources do not belong to the owner of the land where they were found, but to the state, which must conduct a thorough analysis to determine their effects on the local flora and fauna, while also accounting for how much gold is on the property. This situation sparked an important debate among internet users, as, on the one hand, environmentalists are concerned about the effects of mining in that area on the environment. On the other hand, some local residents said that the treasure found should be used to increase the region’s wealth.
