The French rust belt, the area that runs from Firminy through Saint-Etienne all the way to Lyon, was regarded for a long time as a thriving region. The industrial revolution in France began in the valleys between the Loire and Rhône rivers. This led to a process of exploitation and deformation of the landscape, signs of which are still visible today. For more than forty years, the region, like other former industrial sites, has suffered from unemployment and a population exodus. Looking at the long-term photographic study by Nicolas Giraud and Bertrand Stofleth, it is evident that this is now the reality wherever neoliberalism has cut its swathe through industrial communities. Once industry has retreated, the landscapes that are left behind all look fairly similar. In visual terms, there is no great difference between Saint-Etienne and Suhl in Thuringia, for example. In La Vallée, Giraud and Stofleth’s photographs enter into a dialogue with texts by authors from a variety of disciplines.
Nicolas Giraud lives and works in Paris. He has been teaching at the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles since 2014.
Bertrand Stofleth lives and works as a freelance photographer in Lyon.