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

Pascal Marichalar (1) , Gerald Markowitz (2) , David Rosner (3)

1 IRIS - Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux Sociaux - sciences sociales, politique, santé
2 John Jay College and City University Graduate Center, Department of History
3 Center for the History & Ethics of Public Health, Departments of Sociomedical Sciences and History, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health

This document contains an introductory text by Pascal Marichalar, Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, and a speech given by Jean-Paul Sartre in 1970 (all rights reserved Gallimard, translation to English by Pascal Marichalar). Extract: 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.

Domaines: Sociologie; Histoire; Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences; Droit; Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie; Etudes de l'environnement; Etudes sur le genre; Science politique

Pascal Marichalar, Gerald Markowitz, David Rosner. Sartre as prosecutor of occupational murder: notes from a People's Tribunal in a French mine (1970). International Labor and Working-Class History, 2021, 99, pp.167-176. ⟨10.1017/S0147547921000016⟩. ⟨hal-03233280⟩