It thought that that espérer was followed by the future tense when stated affirmatively, and was followed by the subjunctive tense when espérer when stated as a question or in the negative. Yet, in the writing practice, the following is presented as the correct way to use espérer:
Espérons que cela se rafraichisse dans les jours qui viennent.
Why when that is an affirmative statement? Why isn't this correct?: "Espérons que cela se rafraichira"
One other point - it's considered more acceptable to use the subjunctive after an imperative, as in this example. According to Grevisse's Le Bon Usage:
[The subjunctive] peut être plus facilement toléré après l’impératif espérons, qui traduit davantage une invitation à espérer.
This has been asked before, although I'm not sure the discussion came to a definitive conclusion:
https://progress.lawlessfrench.com/questions/view/use-of-the-subjunctive-with-esperer
I think the answer may be that actually people do use the subjunctive with affirmative statements. As it says in the page linked below:
There is a tendency in informal speech for speakers to in fact use the subjunctive with espérer. ... The use of espérer with the indicative is largely an 'artificial' prescriptive convention.
http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/grammar/subjunctive_when_difficulties.shtml
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