Our research explores the suitability of environmental justice (EJ) as a broader and integrative framework (Schlosberg, 2007 ; Taylor, 2000) for sociological analysis in France, where none of the movements claim to belong to EJ. The study focuses on the case of the Alteo factory in Gardanne (France) which produces alumina from bauxite, polluting the local environment with toxic residues which are radioactive, caustic, and loaded with heavy metals. Numerous actors are involved: factory workers, local residents, a national park board, recreational users of the park, fishermen, civil organizations, local and national politicians, the media, environmental NGOs, scientists. The bone of contention is the factory itself but also its two major dumpsites, one containing red dust on land and one pouring red mud in the sea in the middle of the national park. Our proposal aims to display how the stakeholders frame the problem (Snow, 2000) and argue to be recognized as “Problem owners” (Gilbert et Henry, 2014). We will show the interest of the EJ framework to understand their disputes about the legitimacy of this capitalistic industrial production, the damages on the natural environment and human health, and their perceptions of these. It allows us to redefine the environmental and sanitary problems through the prisms of class, gender, racial and ethnic relationships at a local and also a more global scale (from bauxite mining in Guinea to profit-making in a US hedge fund - the factory's owner). How are the issues of justice and solidarity between these scales articulated?