Montbron (France) – After the “shipwreck”, a breath of fresh air: in the land of Charentaise, Montbron, a rural town neglected by its flagships of textiles and slippers, has come back to life thanks to the arrival 10 years ago Hermès, the international champion of luxury Made in France.
In a building made of wood and blond stone from Charente, equipped with hammers and needles, the 260 craftsmen of Tardoire leather goods sew, pat, polish the pieces of skin that will give life to the wallets and bags of the brand at the carriage.
“We make our pieces from A to Z, it’s glorifying, it’s not a factory job”, confides Isabelle Cassard, 49, in one of the 8 workshops with breathtaking views of the countryside and its peaceful surroundings. neighboring, Limousin cows. Here, the contrast with the French deindustrialisation which the candidates for the Elysee are fighting is striking.
“In-house” training
Like this former department manager at Intermarché, the leather craftsmen underwent a demanding 18-month in-house training course to learn how to master Hermès know-how before being able to make the bags independently. Specificity of the house, recruitments are made without age criteria or experience, mainly among people retraining, guided by the desire to do “beautiful”.
By putting down its luxury luggage in Montbron in 2012, Hermès recruited a total of 280 employees, most of them in the nearby employment area and in Angoulême, to complete its South-West pole which has two other sites in Nontron (Dordogne) and Saint-Junien (Haute-Vienne).
“What globalization has taken from us, it has given back to us in a second step. In five years, we have almost compensated for the 300 jobs lost since the 90s in textiles and Charentaise ”, sums up with pride Gwenhaël François, breeder of Limousin cows and Macronist mayor of this town of 2,100 souls, 30 km from Angouleme. The salary of craftsmen – never disclosed – exceeds the minimum wage and can reach a 16th month, including bonuses and incentives. “Much better than textiles”, assures the elected official since 2004.
According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Charente, the sector of “manufacture of travel articles, leather goods and saddlery” was in 2020 the first private employer of the intercommunality, when the manufacture of shoes still provided the most jobs in 2010.
“Plank of Salvation”
Even if the Charentaise is gradually reborn within small entities, the territory has been marked with a hot iron by the collapse of its flagships, from the slippers of the La Rochefoucauld basin to Angel Moreau knits and Toison d’Or blankets. Bricq (technical textiles) which had employed up to 400 employees now has only a few dozen. “The town saw its youth go away and slowly became a dormitory village”, says its mayor.
“It was an industrial shipwreck, and Hermès has become a lifeline,” says his predecessor, ex-senator and former socialist president of the department, Michel Boutant, one of the promoters of the site’s establishment. “If in the end very few of our artisans come from the old textile or footwear industries, the group is sensitive to the manufacturing and craft traditions of a region. Beyond the imprint, the quality requirement of these trades remains ”, emphasizes Emmanuel Pommier, general manager of the Hermès Maroquinerie-Saddlery craft division.
With its artisanal business model “anchored in the territories”, Hermès has more than 4,000 saddlers and leatherworkers in 19 workshops in France and is targeting 600 new recruitments in 2022, including 70 in the south-west pole, to meet the needs of a galloping international demand. This fall, Montbron will be endowed, like the other poles, with its own training school which will deliver a CAP in leather goods.
Another good news for Montbron, where the mayor aims to renovate 20 furnished apartments to accommodate newcomers. When Hermès and around thirty new families arrived, two classes reopened in the school – she lost one every 4 years. New food shops and craftsmen have flourished with the support of the municipality, which buys and renovates decrepit buildings.
“We have seen houses being renovated with open shutters instead of being closed”, confirms Annabelle Fontanges, craftsman at Hermès. “Everything is not settled”, but for the mayor, one thing is certain, “we are no longer seen the same”. (AFP)
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