In the Silence of the Smokestack. Post-Disaster Public Relations in the French Oil Industry (1964–1971)

On January 4, 1966, a major accident occurred at an oil refinery at Feyzin in South-East France. Although this event has been recognized as a watershed in the history of French industrial hazards regulation, little has been studied about the oil industry’s response. The period following the disaster saw an initiation into public relations for the leading figures of the young French oil industry, concurrent with the energy transition that was happening in Western Europe. Most of these leaders continued to hold executive roles in the same companies during the following decades and capitalized on these experiences to communicate on environmental issues. While many oil historians have focused on either a global or a national scale, this contribution proposes a multi-scalar approach to scrutinize how oil companies crafted their communications in the chosen territories for refining and petrochemical activities. Focusing on these areas enables us to emphasize that levers of consent to industrial activities are phenomena that are constructed in lived spaces where frontline communities have to cope with petroleum-based industry’s ordinary risks.