The workshop is saturated with the sound of circular saws. Equipped with professional hearing protection and a great capacity for concentration, eighteen apprentice carpenters work on the miniature of a house roof. Leaning over panels placed on the floor, they precisely draw the volumes of the building, as well as the characteristics of the pieces of wood that make it up. Luc Mabire, carpenter trainer at the Gennevilliers apprenticeship center (Hauts-de-Seine), smiles at our perplexity: “The uninitiated cannot understand. Carpenters have their own language. The tradition of layout in the French frame is listed in the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by Unesco. Teaching this art is magic. » Practicing it is far from easy.
Rita Beillevaire, 30, left her job as an urban planner to take a CAP carpenter: “I wanted to reconnect with matter. The training is much more complex than I thought, it’s extremely technical. » Duncan Driffort, 25, freshly graduated in architecture, shares his observation: “Carpenters are far from nags. The job requires strong skills in geometry. Even after five years of architecture, I am not comfortable with the technical drawing practiced here. »
“Overhead work”
In Gennevilliers, the profiles of those enrolled in the CAP carpenter are varied – the students are between 24 and 48 years old, they were cooks, engineers or even journalists before responding to the call of the woods. All display the same determination when they talk about their retraining in carpentry. “The frame is solid. What we build will still be there in a hundred years. We work for future generations. There is no obsolescence in a framework,” emphasizes Luc Mabire. Companion of duty for nearly thirty years, the trainer sees an increasing number of aspiring carpenters: “In three years, we have tripled the number of staff at the apprenticeship center. I have 90 students this year, there is a real enthusiasm for manual trades, a desire to get back to the concrete. »
Among the students, Pierre Boulanger, a 34-year-old actor and director, turned to carpentry, “in a process of revaluing French craftsmanship and to have the possibility of finding work quickly without depending on the desires of others, as in the cinema”. He does not think so well say: despite the influx of candidates, the profession remains particularly in tension. In 2021, more than 83% of companies in the sector are struggling to recruit. Pôle emploi classifies the profession carpenter at the top of his list.
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