The Times today, 24 April, reports the closure yesterday of the last coal
mine in France -- the La Houve mine at Creutzwald in Lorraine. The coal mining
industry in France was nationalised in 1946. At its height, in 1957, it employed
358,000 people, and 58,897 million tonnes of coal was raised. In recent
decades the industry suffered as the proportion of electricity fired by coal
declined, from 30 per cent in 1960 to 4 per cent in 2000. Nuclear power now supplies
80 per cent of France's energy.
C J Williams
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