A more immediate need for a canal covering the section between Givors and Rive-de-Gier emerged in the 1750s, when a cheaper method than pack mules was needed to carry coal to heat houses in Lyon and to fuel the glass works that had been opened in Givors in 1749.
Letters patent were issued to François and Guillaume Zacharie on 6 September 1761 giving them the right to build and then use the canal for forty years, after which it would revert to the crown.