Sartre as prosecutor of occupational murder: notes from a People's Tribunal in a French mine (1970). (2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Marichalar, Pascal; Markowitz, Gerald; Rosner, David
• Is Part Of: International labor and working class history. Number 99(2021)
• Page Start: 167
• Page End: 176
• Publication Date: 2021
• Subjects: occupational fatalities -- workplace hazards -- France -- mining -- wageworker; Working class -- History -- Periodicals; 305.56205
• DOI: 10.1017/S0147547921000016
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0147-5479

Abstract

Abstract : On February 4, 1970, in the Fouquières-lès-Lens coal mine in northern France, sixteen miners were killed in a gas explosion ("firedamp, " grisou in French). This was an accident like many others before it, yet with a relatively high number of fatalities. The public prosecutor concluded, as usual, that there was no case against the publicly owned mine. No investigation was to be carried out. The accident had been the work of fate, of bad luck.