Landscape Trajectories of Heavy Industry in Three French Alpine Valleys (1970–2025)

Taking the period of industrial decline from 1970 to 2025 as a frame of reference, the article analyses the landscape trajectories of heavy industry, taken here as the branches of electrochemistry and electrometallurgy, in three valleys in the French Alps: the Val d'Arly, the Tarentaise and the Maurienne. While the landscapes may initially appear to be a visible impression of the economic and territorial changes that have occurred in these valleys over the past fifty-five years, careful observation of the industrial sites – both closed and still active – only partially validates this idea. The landscape trajectories of industrial sites are multiple. They reveal periods of inertia as well as moments of intense transformation. Observation of sites that remain in operation shows that these productive landscapes are relatively stable over time, without being entirely fixed. Transformations occur more in the urban landscape of the valley floor, into which these industrial sites are integrated, and tend to be blured. The observation of closed sites during this period reveals trajectories dominated by their progressive erasure from the landscape. However, this erasure occurs at different times, and the resulting post-industrial landscapes are mixed. This analysis of industrial decline through the landscape ultimately highlights broader territorial dynamics that have shaped the valleys studied between 1970 and 2025, and questions the real and symbolic place left to industry in mountainous areas.