The plateau, on the documents
Episodes in this series
A dead industrial site, followed through to the 2026 vote that will decide what happens to its ground.
Five instalments: the date it closed, the bodies that still carry it, the wages, the land and its three planning applications, the vote ahead. The series refuses both easy routes — factory-floor nostalgia and the tale of successful reinvention — and holds one costed comparison: what the mill paid its women in 1983 against what the sawmill pays its sawyers in 2026.
It names no culprit for the closure. The cause is treated as structural, and documented.
2 articles
214 staff, 168 of them women. On 14 June 1983 the La Rive-Haute mill produced until 5.40 p.m. Hour by hour, what that last day was — the workshop register, the production book and six memories.
Written by Noëlle Vasseur
A 1983 payslip in constant euros, a 2026 sawmill pay scale. The comparison vindicates neither those who mourn the mill nor those who celebrate the reinvention. It gives figures.
Written by Théo Brissac