Aniche 2021. Gilets jaunes at a permanent picket on the town’s roundabout.

Down to the early 21st century, the Nord-Pas-de-Calais mining region was a driving force of the French economy, an area that spans some 200 miles near the Belgian border. Coal, steel, and textiles created wealth for many generations. With the advent of globalization and the offshoring of production, however, the once progressive working classes began to be impoverished, prompting them to turn to sovereigns and populist ideologies. The economic crisis triggered by subprime securities in the United States and then the pandemic have exacerbated the frailty of an already precarious production system. Nord-pas-de-Calais is the mirror of the crisis of one of the world’s most generous welfare states. The upshot is that the provinces northeast of Paris have become the stronghold of far-right parties and populist movements. This is a very marked phenomenon that can be observed in many industrial areas of old Europe, from the north east of the UK to Taranto in Italy. France, the world’s sixth-biggest economy, has sputtered along for years with virtually no growth. Average unemployment rates have hovered around 10% for several years, and in this corner of France they are higher. Only in the city of Denain, a former industrial district, the unemployment is more than double the national average and the per capita income is 558 euros per month. It is from Denain that the candidate for the regional elections of the Rassemblement National (far-right party led by Marine Le Pen) comes. In the nineteenth century, after the discovery of coal, Denain became one of the cradles of the industrial revolution, between mining and metallurgy. Usinor, the iron and steel plant, employed 15.000 workers. In the nineteenth century, after the discovery of coal, Denain became one of the cradles of the industrial revolution, between mining and metallurgy. Usinor, the iron and steel plant, employed 15,000 people. In two years, 12,000 people left the town.

‘Mapping the Rust’ is a photographic survey of the changes in the industrial landscape as well as the social and political changes that have ensued. The project therefore describes of a territory impoverished by the abandonment of work and at the same time betrayed by the leftist social parties. As happened in the American rust belt, with the fall of Detroit’s auto industry, voters were deprived of jobs and wealth accumulated in secondary cities far from the coasts. Rust, coal, steel, textiles, tools, trade unions, sovereignty and populism are at the centre of this investigation.

The book is available from the TerraProject online shop at this link.