The ceremony

On Saturday 8 August 2026, several hundred people gathered at the former Bois du Cazier coal mine in Marcinelle, near Charleroi, to mark the 70th anniversary of Belgium's worst industrial disaster. The ceremony opened with the traditional reading of the names of the 262 miners killed on 8 August 1956, with a bell named Maria Mater Opharnorum tolling between each name pronounced. The victims came from Italy, Belgium, and ten other countries, making the catastrophe a tragedy with a European dimension. The site, once an active coal mine, has since become a museum and a place of remembrance. After this emotionally charged moment, various officials took the stage in succession on the podium installed at the site.

Official tributes

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever (N-VA) paid tribute in a video posted on the social network X, stating that Marcinelle had shaken Belgium and Europe to their core and that safety rules and labour standards were strengthened in the aftermath of the disaster.

“It is a heritage that we must preserve every day.”

He added that recent fatal fires at construction sites in Antwerp and Brussels, which cost several lives, serve as a reminder that worker safety is never an acquired certainty. Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe, president of the Bois du Cazier, described the 8 August 1956 disaster as without precedent and stressed the duty of remembrance it imposes, particularly as the widows of the victims gradually pass away, taking with them what he called an irreplaceable form of lived testimony. Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Prévot emphasised the European character of the memory tied to the catastrophe, and Walloon Minister-President Adrien Dolimont described it as a tragedy that would never cease to be commemorated.

The protest

Ignazio La Russa, president of the Italian Senate and a member of the far-right Fratelli d'Italia party, took the stage to read a message from Italian President Sergio Mattarella. As some union militants had feared and anticipated, the union members acted by common agreement: they silently turned their backs to the podium during his address, directing their protest at La Russa personally. Earlier in the day, Charleroi police had forcibly confiscated a banner and posters from a small group of antifascist activists who had come to protest the presence of Italian far-right political figures at the commemoration. The police intervention was described as forceful. Charleroi mayor Thomas Dermine said in his own remarks that Charleroi is an antifascist city, capable of standing up when values are at stake.

Meloni's reaction

Giorgia Meloni, Italy's Prime Minister and also a Fratelli d'Italia member, condemned the union members' gesture on her social media accounts, calling it "a grave and shameful act." She characterised the protest as a political contestation transformed into a gesture of contempt toward the institutions of the Italian State.

“Marcinelle is not the place for political divisions. It is a place of memory, of respect and of the dignity of work. Those who chose today to turn their backs have shown disrespect to all of that.”