Fin d’un monde ouvrier. Liévin, 1974

In the early hours of 27 December 1974, there was an explosion in a coalmine in Liévin, a commune southwest of Lens. Forty-one lost their lives instantly, while another individual died the following day. It is this mining accident—the most serious in post-war France—that is the main focus of Fontaine’s study, which combines both a careful and meticulous reconstruction of the ramifications and interpretations of the event at local level with a wider goal of using the accident as a way into analysing the broader historical context. Fontaine argues that the accident itself occurred in a moment of change, caught between the end of the Trentes Glorieuses on the one hand, and industrial decline on the other, with the consequent economic, social and political changes that France was undergoing, including shifting perceptions of the working class, a shift in industry— and its future of it—as well as the legacy of 1968. Fontaine conceptualizes her study as one of understanding Liévin as a failure in that different narratives and ways of understanding the accident were unable to capture and channel it; Liévin thus failed to transcend and have a wider impact.

Accident (philosophy) · Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology) · Humanities · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · French Historical and Cultural Studies · French Urban and Social Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law