coal

Locals say career opportunities are largely nonexistent outside of mining and some heavy manufacturing companies that support the coal and timber industries.

As Mr. Tremlett writes, Spaniards during the first two decades after Franco’s death “genuinely did not want to rake over old coals.”

But the backbreaking work left behind—often in agriculture or coal mines—was worse.

It is the world's second-largest coal exporter, holds the third-largest coal reserves and continues to channel billions of dollars in public subsidies to fossil fuels.

But it is also one of the world's biggest coal exporters, and a major exporter of liquefied natural gas.