Charles Ignace Plichon was a French lawyer, businessman and politician.
As a young man he was attracted to the social idealism of Saint-Simonianism.
In 1841–42 he undertook a diplomatic and exploratory mission to the regency of Tunis, which was seeking French protection from the Turks
In 1844–45 he travelled in Egypt to obtain information about the proposed Suez Canal, and returned via Palestine, Syria and Turkey.
He represented Hazebrouck in the Nord department as a deputy in the last years of the July Monarchy.
He avoided politics during the French Second Republic and the early years of the Second French Empire, then again represented Hazebrouck as a champion of Catholic and protectionist interests from 1857 until his death in 1888.
He made a fortunate marriage through which he became President of the Compagnie des mines de Béthune.
He was briefly Minister of Public Works in 1870.
Ignace Plichon c. 1882
Plichon as a deputy of the Corps législatif
"M. Plichon, ministre des Travaux publics" (1870)
Compagnie des mines de Béthune
The Compagnie des mines de Béthune, sometimes called the sometimes called the Compagnie de Grenay after the name of the concession, was a French coal mining company in the Pas-de-Calais that was established in 1851 and nationalized in 1946.
The company had 11 mines, each with one or more shafts for extraction of coal or ventilation.
It had a large facility for screening and washing raw coal, and for producing coke and other secondary products.
During World War I (1914–1918) the front line crossed the mining concession, with the northern part occupied by the Germans, but despite constant shelling production of coal continued.
Coke production peaked at 565,195 tons in 1928.
The company had two thermal electricity plants, and operated 159 kilometres (99 mi) of railway tracks.
At its peak the company was one of the largest coal mining operations in the region, with 12,640 employees in 1945.
Mine head at Bully-les-Mines c. 1900
Charles Ignace Plichon, President from 1873 to 1883
Château Mercier, residence of the director-general of the company. The building was damaged by shellfire during World War I, restored after the war.
Mine 12 at Annequin c. 1909