Loos-en-Gohelle: a former mining town covers 90% of its public energy needs from solar

Loos-en-Gohelle (Pas-de-Calais, 7,000 inhabitants) does not look like a place where you would seek models of ecological transition. Slag heaps dominate the landscape. The unemployment rate exceeds 13%. The industrial memory weighs heavily.

And yet. Since 2021, approximately 2,600 square metres of solar panels installed on around forty municipal buildings cover 90% of the town’s public energy needs. These installations generate around €50,000 of energy per year. The slag heaps — symbols of the coal era — now host a nature reserve.

Mayor Jean-François Caron, re-elected with scores reaching 82% of the vote, has made this transformation a collective project. The town hosts an eco-park for associations, experiments with a local currency in the town centre, and invites citizens to co-fund projects through a participatory scheme.

Loos-en-Gohelle’s unemployment rate remains high. But it is lower than that of Lens (23.6%), Calais (22.8%) or Roubaix (26.4%) — towns with comparable industrial profiles that did not take the same path.

This is not a miracle. It is the result of a coherent municipal policy, maintained across several terms, in a town that had every reason not to believe in it. Loos-en-Gohelle shows that an ecological transition led by and for the inhabitants of a deindustrialised territory is possible — and that its effects can be measured.

Source: Reasons to be Cheerful, February 2026

Further reading: Transition Towns: From Totnes to Loos-en-Gohelle, the Proof Is in the Doing ✿ Coming soon — subscribe to get notified