After three centuries, French miners dig last lump of coal

One last, symbolic lump of coal was extracted from La Houve mine during a ceremony last night that launched three days of events commemorating an industry that once employed 300,000 people.

Miners, the nearly 500 that remain, and their families gathered at the mine in the town of Creutzwald, near the border with Germany.

Other ceremonies and visits to the mines were planned for the weekend.

Coal, discovered in France in 1720, has been a money-losing business in France since the industry was brought under state control nearly 50 years ago. Mines have been closed step by step in France as they have across Europe.

In Britain, more than 150 mines have closed in the past two decades, leaving a dozen in operation - three of which are to close this year. The closures also meant the loss of 200,000 jobs.

Germany has nine "hard coal" sites where anthracite is mined underground, but discussions are under way to reduce production by 2012.

For many of the miners at La Houve, the job was a family affair. Daniel Gniech quit school at 16 to work in the mines. His father was a miner, as were three brothers, and his sister married one.

"It’s a hard profession," Mr Gniech, 40, said. "But you learn to love it more than anything."

Harsh working conditions and strong solidarity among miners were a driving force behind France’s now iron-clad labour movement.

In 1947, the industry employed 360,000 miners and hit peak production in 1958 with 58.9 million tons of coal brought above ground.

When new and less polluting sources of energy emerged in the 1960s, coal could not compete. By the mid-1970s, the national output was reduced to 25 million tons and a decade later the industry employed just 22,000 people.