Abstract EN:

The basin of decazeville was at its peak on the eve of the first world war. Dominated by industrial groups of a national, even international dimension, it suffered from the dramatic socio-economic changes of the 1920s. Since it was anxious to preserve both its profits and its means of action on a medium term basis, an in the total absence of any local development strateay, employers were not in a position to counteract the regressive tendencies accentuated by the depression. The continuously remodeled social structure for a while masked the signs of this decline. Massive immigration, which in a few years changed the face of the local working class, brought new dynamic elements to the "black country" of the aveyron. The disappearance of the iron and steeworkers, the rapid integration of a large number of foreigners and the preponderance of the mining industry, fashioned a collective identity in those difficult times wich was to last right up to the 1960s. Directed concorned by these changes, the workers movement was, through its trade unions and througt the progress of the revolutionary trend, the essential vector of this new identity. In defining ale their actions in function of union strategy and national policy the local workers organisations managed to enlarge the conceptual horizon of the population of the basin, but these some organisations brought ne coherent answer to the economic decline and to the weaknesses in the workers movement, inspite of the activities of prominent personalities and wignuy respected militants.