At the microphone of the bus carrying the fifty or so passengers, Pablo immediately warns: “This is not a tourist visit like the others. “That afternoon, the program does not actually plan to stroll through a museum or a historical monument but within an industrial flagship, Airbus Atlantic, located in Montoir-de-Bretagne, near Saint-Nazaire.
Also, when after a ten-minute journey, the vehicle enters the huge 17-hectare site of the aircraft manufacturer, a security guard gets on board to check everyone’s mandatory identity documents. As for the souvenir photo, unthinkable! From now on, the instruction is clear: any shooting is strictly prohibited, therefore, mobile phones must remain switched off or, and this is the case here, in airplane mode. “Airbus is very strict with this,” continues the guide. There is a certain industrial secret to keep and I remind you that there are also a few military constructions. Finally, there is the question of image rights for working people. »
Because the activity does not stop during the visits, quite the contrary. To tell the truth, this is even the goal of this immersion offered to the general public throughout the year, and mainly in the summer, in 3,500 French companies which, like Airbus, are registered in the ” Company and discovery”: show the know-how of the teams and elevate it to national pride.
And it works ! In 2022, two million curious people have, for a morning or an afternoon, swapped the beach towel or the hiking shoes to get a glimpse behind the scenes of “made in France” in all sectors of activity. . “On our various sites, 85% of visitors are French, including many locals from the Pays de la Loire region”, explains Marie Bibard, from Saint-Nazaire Renversante, the structure responsible for organizing these excursions at the office of the tourism.
In the top 10 of the French ranking of attendance dominated by EDF (500,000 visitors in 2022, all sites combined in France) there are also three Saint-Nazaire entities: the shipyards (second position), Eol Center éolien (4th) and Airbus Atlantic (8th) where you can come and admire live the assembly of the A320 and A350 fuselages for €19 (half-price for 4-17 year olds).
Better than a museum? Different. “Unlike an exhibition where things remain fixed, this is a place to live, work, and it moves every day or every week”, welcomes Pablo who, before entering, took care to distribute to each of the headphones to be heard in the noise of the assembly lines on which several hundred workers continue, impassive, to fix rivets here, to carry out a weld there or to mount doors and windows further.
Strange feeling, all the same, to watch others work while you yourself are on vacation. “It may not be very nice of us to go and see them when we are very quiet, but hey, seeing other people working is what makes the charm of our vacation”, jokes Gérald, computer scientist. “It’s not a safari, we try to provide knowledge while respecting the workers without disturbing the production, reframes Pablo who prepares his interventions with documents provided by the manufacturer and personal research. It’s very sharp, so we’re popularizing it to make the whole thing as accessible as possible. »
Facing him, there are indeed many families (55%) with children or teenagers, like Alexandre, 14, who came with his grandmother from Yvelines. “I like planes a lot, and I learned a lot here. It is also to this young public that these visits are aimed because beyond showing, the idea is also to seduce, to make jobs in industry attractive for new generations. “This allows us to create vocations and support our recruitment objectives”, we confirm at Airbus Atlantic where we are looking for cable fitters, fitters and engineers. It also happens that future employees slip into the groups, anxious to discover their next place of work in a less informal setting than a hiring visit.
Karine is getting ready to go and observe the construction of the liners. “I only know the boats once they are finished, there I come to see the very beginning, launches the one who exercises in business tourism where she sells cruises. And then it allows me to gauge the quality before booking on it! For this 40-year-old from the Doubs, this excursion, in the end, is almost holiday homework.