This is a great movie from 1993 starring Gerard Depardieu and is set during a miners strike. Based on the book by Emile Zola this epic from Claude Berri didn't really get the praise it should have in this country but now you can watch the trailer and decide whether you want to get the DVD.
Much of Berri's film was shot on location in the Lens and Valenciennes regions of northern France, and the extensive unemployment and poverty the cast and crew still witnessed there led to the formation of a society, "Germinal l'association", headed by Depardieu, to alleviate the suffering caused by crippling unemployment in the départements comprising the region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais.
