Preserving industrial heritage
After last month’s excursion into the world of meteorology, this May we are back on the road to discovering our region’s industrial heritage. After trips to Saarland and the Gaume, our destination this month is Lorraine.
The main reason is the revival of the play “Leurs enfants après eux” next month at the Escher Theater. The play is based on the novel of the same name by French author Nicolas Mathieu. It was first performed as part of Esch2022. The story of the novel is set in the northern region of Lorraine at the time of the closure of the steelworks in the early 1990s.
Our “Minett-Location” of the month: Parc du Haut Fourneau U4
Uckange, at the end of the “Vallée de la Fensch” and on the Moselle between Thionville and Metz, was for a long time one of the iron production centres of Lorraine. In 1991, however, the Uckange ironworks closed down after a period of economic difficulties. Almost immediately, the demolition of the old ironworks began. Many buildings fell victim to the bulldozers before the association “Mécilor” was founded, which actively fought for the preservation of the site and managed to stop the demolition.
Blast Furnace 4, the U4, one of the six blast furnaces of the ironworks, was saved. Today, this 71-metre-high industrial structure is a testimony to Lorraine’s iron industry and a unique industrial monument, as you will discover in this episode of Minett Mash-up.
Our guest: Jean Larché
Jean Larché is a retired ironworker who never worked in Uckange, but spent his entire career at the ironworks in Hayange. From apprentice to manager, he has had a career full of ups and downs, which he proudly shares with us.
Today, he is president of Mécilor, an association dedicated to preserving the industrial heritage of northern Lorraine, collecting and digitising documents from and about the ironworks, and regularly guides visitors through the U4 site in Uckange with his volunteers.
In addition to Jean Larché, in this episode we also spoke briefly with Juliette Gehin about the “Jardin de Transformation”. This project by the Université de Lorraine is investigating how the contaminated soil of an ironworks can be remediated in a natural way using plants. Juliette Gehin gave us a glimpse of this scientific pilot project, which could also be of interest to the Minett region.
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© Minett UNESCO Biosphere / CNCI
Our quiz:
The ironworks at Uckange were created when Lorraine was still under German rule. But the Germans did not use all the iron ore. Why was this?
At first, the minette was not used because it contained too much phosphorus. It was only when it became possible to remove the phosphorus from the iron ore industrially that it was used on a large scale.
How old did an ironworker have to be to retire in France in the 1980s?
- 50
- 60
- 64
Links bei d’Sujete vun dësem Episod:
- Parc du Haut Fourneau U4: Homepage of the former Uckange ironworks
- Activities around the U4: Event calendar of the Uckange blast furnace park for the summer of 2024
- Leurs enfants après eux: Play to be performed again in June at the Escher Theater
- Leurs enfants après eux: Novel by French author Nicolas Mathieu, published in 2018
- Mécilor: Association for the preservation of the industrial heritage of Lorraine
- The Uckange ironworks: Website with information on the history of this ironworks
- The iron industry in Lorraine: Website with information on the mines and ironworks of the region
- Jardin de transformation: Project of the University of Lorraine for the natural remediation of contaminated soils on former industrial sites using plants
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