Sixty years ago, the inauguration of the Mont Blanc Tunnel marked a turning point in the connection between France and Italy. This engineering masterpiece, carved through the heart of the Alps, stands as a testament to technical prowess, human determination, and international cooperation. To commemorate this milestone, Sara Loffredi’s novel Fronte di Scavo takes readers deep into the lives of the workers who made this monumental project possible. Sara Loffredi talks to geneveMonde's David Glaser in a 20 minute long interview in Italian (written translation below).

Inspired by the harsh realities of underground laborers, Sara Loffredi masterfully blends historical accuracy with narrative freedom, crafting a story that is both precise and deeply moving. At the heart of the novel is Ettore, a complex protagonist burdened by his past and insecurities, whose journey mirrors the physical and psychological struggles of the workers. Alongside him, the enigmatic Samiel, a mystical "rabeilleur" (healer), adds depth and cultural richness to the narrative. Sara Loffredi’s writing strikes a perfect balance between technical precision and poetic storytelling, allowing readers to feel the weight of every excavation and the hope that kept the workers going.

Beyond the physical labor, the novel highlights the personal growth of its characters and the human cost of grand infrastructure projects. The author’s personal connection to the story—her own relative worked on the tunnel in the 1970s—adds an extra layer of authenticity and emotional depth.

The Mont Blanc Tunnel profoundly impacted trade between France, Italy, and Switzerland, particularly affecting Geneva, which experienced significant economic and geopolitical shifts. While its construction sparked environmental and political debates, it remains a powerful symbol of cooperation and resilience. Fronte di Scavo reminds us of a universal truth: unity and human perseverance can overcome even the greatest challenges.

In a second part of this two audio series, historian Francesca Piana discusses Geneva’s crucial role in the making of the tunnel.

Fronte di Scavo, a human story behind the construction of the Mont-Blanc tunnel

Sara Loffredi's interview translated in English

David Glaser, geneveMonde.ch : Sara I'm very happy to be here with you today because we're going to talk about Le Mont Blanc. A very important anniversary is approaching: sixty years since the construction of the tunnel between France and Italy. I'd like to know how you got the idea of writing a novel about the construction of the tunnel.

Sara Loffredi : Well, I too am very happy to talk to you and to talk about this project that was very, very important to me. The initial idea for the novel came about for two reasons: one sentimental, one personal and one of historical interest. The first was that I grew up in the Aosta Valley and when I was little, seeing this tunnel and even going through it with my parents meant that I could access a world that wasn't immediately visible. There was a world beyond that I couldn't see and this made me very curious, so as a child let's say it was like a moment of fantasy that led me to look for real information on how this project had been built and conceived. And when I started to imagine it was the right moment to finally tell this story and I did the necessary historical research and found that the tunnel really did have a magical history, a particular history because of the way it was born and also because of the men who imagined it before building it.

I saw that there were many stories that in some way justified my fascination from when I was a child and so the memory of my childhood came together with it. And then the curiosity to discover the real stories of that place and that project.

gM :Yes, because you provide a lot of details about the history of those years. The point is that you have to use words that are related to the world of engineering. How did you integrate all the technical words and also the historical facts?

SL : Yes, I felt it was my responsibility to be very precise, both from a technical engineering point of view, as you say, and from a historical point of view, and so I acted on two fronts, on the excavation front, I acted from an engineering point of view and I documented myself, in particular with a person who was initially responsible for my documentation and who unfortunately is no longer with us, but he was the first person to give me access to all the technical information I needed because he collaborated with the company that still manages the tunnel and so he provided me with a series of documents and also texts to consult. It wasn't always easy to understand the language of engineers, but in addition to the technical language there was an idea and the idea guided me through the understanding of the technical language.

It was a bit difficult for me to fully understand the design part, the triangulation, which was done by the surveyor Pietro Alaria. But Alaria has written a book about this very subject, so in this sense he too has been informative, that is, he has acted as a disseminator of his method and so I have studied the texts in some cases written by the direct protagonists and in some cases I have obviously obtained information from the tunnel company. The historical part opened up a whole new world for me because, as I imagine Francesca will say, the idea of the tunnel wasn't born when it was built but much earlier. There were many ideas before what was eventually built, and so I felt that the historical research should somehow give back to that tunnel its history and its long history. And also the people who were part of it, like Dino Lora Totino, who was the first person I imagined the tunnel with, and he started digging without permission on a state border. I tried as much as possible to be precise and accurate, even though mine was still a novel, to which I added a narrative part.

gM : It's very interesting. De Saussure was an important player in the centuries-old history of Mont Blanc. You also talk about the history between two countries, Italy and France. We'll talk about this in a minute with Francesca, but I'd like to know how you dealt with all the events, the Italian political ones but also the French ones at the time, in combination with the personal memories of the characters involved.

SL : So the idea that there was such an important work at that particular time was another of the points that fascinated me, in the sense that it wasn't like building a tunnel. The story takes place in the aftermath of the Second World War, with a geopolitical situation that I would say was complex. A story that wasn't so long ago that even my uncles, my grandmother's brothers, who worked as miners in the construction of the tunnel, didn't remember it. I never say this (in the book) because in reality they were distant relatives, but since they had worked on the construction site they told me part of the story. When I started this project, I could feel the political idea you're telling me about, but in my opinion there were two levels, one of the people and one of the States. Surely the idea of uniting two States that had been divided by the war had a very great significance.

Obviously this is the task of the historian, Francesca (2nd part of this piece to come shortly), but I believe that history has its reasons and the people within history sometimes have others. Surely when you go with the camera lens closer to the people who worked on the project and also to the feeling that there was in the valley with respect to this project, the idea was that of an opening to the world that is political, but also economic. So in my opinion, we need to see things from the perspective of opening up to this Europe that was being born and that had an additional possibility in the better circulation of people; there was also a very great economic necessity because it certainly had to turn an economy that needed to be given breathing space. [FP3] So as far as I'm concerned, even the people closest to my family had experience on that construction site.

The feeling was that something was opening up, both on an ideological level, some felt it more than others, but also on an economic level. So in any case, an opening up.

gM : The feeling is that it's a very Italian story because we know that many Italian workers came from Switzerland to build bridges and monuments. This is a historic construction site, which lasted several years and connects two countries, but which also says a lot about the workers themselves. There were many Italian migrant workers on the French side and this moved me a lot because it is also a story of migration. So you really have to respect the various strands of stories involved.

SL : Yes, certainly what also emerged from the research I did, is that inside the construction site on both sides of this belly, that is to say inside the same belly of the mountain but from two sides, there were many Italians and as you said, perhaps fewer French on this side, but in any case it was a population that already went where there was work. If there was no work on this side of the tunnel, perhaps because the construction site was already closed or already complete, they would look for work on the other side of the tunnel, on the other side of the excavation. You asked me a question about work; I believe that work is one of the fundamental themes of the book, or rather the idea of how much work can give people a chance for development and self-awareness, especially at a time like the one my family really experienced, where there was a real possibility of having a better life. I think of these relatives I'm talking about who came from Calabria and traveled 1000 kilometers to come to the Aosta Valley.

They were looking for a better future, even if they didn't have a very high level of education. I think that at that time work was seen even more than today as a chance for freedom, to be able to imagine a different life and find a way to build it. The value of work is always fundamental for me, but at that particular time after the Second World War in Italy, which was trying to understand what to do with itself, it was really fundamental and that construction site was an example of this. Many workers went to the Aosta Valley in those years, both for the tunnel construction site and also for the dams. There were other large infrastructures that were being built, the dams, and so many workers moved there to find employment.

gM : I will ask Francesca later about the history of the public works involved. I thought that in the Aosta Valley there are many traditions and you probably want to present them. I think that the character of Samuel was very important, as he became a way to tell the story of local traditions in the Aosta Valley, which are similar to those of the Swiss Valley. Since you are from Milan, was it too complicated to learn about these traditions to include them in the book?

SL : I lived in the Aosta Valley for the first few years of my life and every summer I would go to my grandmother's house, where my relatives and uncles also lived. Even though they were originally from Calabria and had different traditions, they also knew the traditions of the Aosta Valley. This allowed me to include the character of Samuel. As a child I myself had an experience with a rabeilleur (traditional healer) because I had fallen from a tree and my father took me to this famous rabeilleur whose name was Rolando and who really existed. He had this gift in his hands and he would fix people. In my memory as a child this man was very tall, so much so that he frightened me, he had something magical about him, even if in reality he was simply very good at handling people's legs and arms, just like he did with his animals. The rabeilleur didn't charge because he knew he had a gift and the only thing he accepted like Samuel was grappa, a liqueur. He massaged people with grappa and also used it for his own recreational purposes.

But here's when I imagined Ettore, who for me is a fundamental character in his growth, I needed an element that would make him change, that would make him evolve. Because the important thing about Ettore is that thanks to Samiel he sees another point of view with respect to this project, he sees the point of view of the mountain. That is, it is no longer only the point of view of the men involved in the project for the union between Italy and France, but there is a mountain that is being violated. From his point of view, the tunnel is not a good thing for the mountain; and who could help me with this? The voice of a rabeilleur could help me, and this explains why Samiel is fundamental for Ettore and for the story.

gM : Nina is also a character that is close to nature because, in a way, the making of the tunnel was a violence against the mountain, which is one of the book's characters too. The love story unfolding between Nina and Ettore was probably also instrumental in bringing out the feminine and, through that, engaging with the natural world, nature, instead of solely concentrating on infrastructures.

Yes, I needed a character who brought feminine energy. It's true, I needed her because not only for the love story which, on a narrative level, was interesting, but I really needed the idea of a person who was in a place not meant for her. Nina doesn't belong in the construction site, she's there to work, but she comes from another place and until the end we don't understand why she's there. And so her feminine energy, as you say, rightly makes her somehow see the most natural part of that environment and also an energy that somehow exists within herself - I don't know if I can explain myself - that is, she has such a strong core that even within a construction site, which carries a completely different energy, she manages to exist and be luminous. That is, it inhabits that place without necessarily being part of it. That's what I needed, okay, and it was interesting from a historical point of view. Here I think, Francesca, I may not have told you this.

Obviously I had to find a historical justification for Nina's presence and it was difficult. The first source I told you about, which I may not have mentioned directly, but which was called Gibellina, also told me this: that women bring bad luck to construction sites and ships. But I also thought that there must have been some female workers, for example in the canteen. I can't imagine that it was really always all men. Of course, the ones who stayed on the construction site were men, but there must have been people moving around. So together we found a historical justification for why some miners' wives went to work in the canteen, since historically some of them worked a few hours to earn some extra money. Obviously, at the beginning my first idea was to have Nina sleep at the construction site and it was impossible, it would have been historically impossible so in fact I settled her in the village.

It's nice because then when you have a book of characters it seems like they're real people, right? So I settled her a little further down in a house, a little further down and not really on the construction site.

gM : Thanks for your answers, one last question, how is it used in Italy? At the moment, do you think the story could be included in the school system, in a literature lesson, for example? When it comes to history, do you think it's important to know about a Franco-Italian project like this? Should we think that your book could be included in both the novels and history sections?

SL : Well, thank you. First of all, I went to a lot of schools with the digging face. The book was published in 2020 and it was an unfortunate year, as you know, yet we managed to take it to many schools and there was always collaboration with teachers to use it as a starting point for historical reflection, which they then dealt with in depth. But it's true that the students were captivated by the story in the book. Let's see how it goes next. For this anniversary I'd like to take the book out and about again and continue to present it. It would be great to translate it into French, maybe we'll get around to it one day. I think the idea of tackling a historical event and looking for its narrative roots to share with students is definitely something worth doing.

gM : Thank you Sara. Thanks for sharing this history.

SL : Grazie

Interview by David Glaser, listen to the second part of the audio series with historian Francesca Piana here.