“Germinal” is Emile Zola’s thirteenth novel from the “Rougon-Macquart” cycle, devoted to members of one family who lived during the Second Empire—the era of Napoleon III’s dictatorship—published in 1885. The novel’s title is symbolic and refers to the first month of spring “germinal” in the French revolutionary calendar.
The son of Gervaise Macquart and her lover Auguste Lantier, the young Etienne Lantier, is fired for slapping his employer on the railways of Northern France. He goes looking for new work and gets hired at a mine, where he encounters horrifying working conditions. When the mining company, citing an economic crisis, announces a hidden pay cut, Lantier pushes the miners toward a strike. He manages to overcome their resignation and make them share the dream of a more just and equal society… In 1902, at the funeral of Emile Zola, a delegation of miners from Denain accompanied the procession chanting: “Germinal! Germinal!”.