Photo : Daniel Villafruela / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Saint-Étienne
Long the leading mining and industrial city in France, Saint-Étienne, in the Loire, built its prosperity on coal, arms manufacturing and ribbon weaving, a working-class past still recalled by the imposing metal headframe of the Puits Couriot, a former mine now converted into a mining museum.
After 20th-century industrial decline, the city reinvented itself around design, symbolised by the Cité du Design in the former arms factory, and in 2010 became the only French city in UNESCO's Creative Cities network for design. Surrounded by hills that recall its spoil heaps, Saint-Étienne combines this restored industrial heritage with a strong sporting identity, embodied by its historic football club, in an urban setting undergoing transformation between the Massif Central and the Rhône valley.
