Joseph Leder and Ernest Niessen are now retired, but they both used to work in the mines that are part of the long-standing forging and steel-making tradition in a valley of France’s northeastern Lorraine region.
Now, however, it looks like this venerable industry, which helped shape the landscape of the area and the culture of the people who live there, may be winding down after years of closures of industrial sites, mines and furnaces.