France on Friday is to close the last of its coal mines, ending an industry that, after more than two centuries of toil and occasional tragedy, became doomed because of reliance on nuclear energy and cheaper competition abroad.
The excavation of a symbolic final block of the compressed black carbon from the La Houve mine near the eastern town of Creutzwald is to be a highly symbolic moment for the country and Europe on many levels, underlining personal, historic, social and economic and political transformations.
“We are worn out by years spent underground, without ever seeing the daylight, and for that we are happy to stop,” said one miner, Yves Cerati, who spent 24 of his 43 years in the depths of La Houve.
He particularly remembers the date of February 25, 1985, when 22 of his colleagues died of methane gas suffocation — a frequent risk for coal miners everywhere.
But the subterranean cameraderie that informs his sadness is also a point of pride, and something he and other miners said they will deeply miss.
“Down there, you’re nothing, you exist for and thanks to the others. And now, with the last mine closing, that knots the stomach up,” said a maintenance chief, Bernard Starck, 50.