“We have a cultural battle here to show that this industry has transformed” believes Jean Viard

With sociologist Jean Viard, we now wonder why the industrial world no longer interests young people as much. According to him, industry today is the great place for innovation and ecological warfare. Decryption.

Studies and surveys have shown us in recent days that young people have a bad image, a distorted image, at least of the world of industry.

franceinfo: What should we deduce from these studies and surveys on the reluctance of young people in this area?

Jean Viard: So it’s a real problem because if we roughly follow current projections, we will create, in 10 years, 1 million jobs in this sector, and for half of the available jobs, we have difficulty finding people, that means we have a real problem. I was in Cherbourg recently, they have 4,000 jobs in the nuclear industry and they are having difficulty finding interested young people.

So why does it attract less young people? On the one hand because they have a completely false image, they think that industry is half of the pollution, when that is absolutely not the case. Industry produces 17% of greenhouse gases and not 50%. The image is completely shifted among young people, much more so than among older people because the oldest knew the industry before its disappearance. Currently, there is 10% of industrial activity in France, previously it was almost 20%.

And then the industry is very masculine, and all the engineering professions, which lead to industry, the major engineering schools, are 70% boys, so these are worlds which are slowly becoming more feminine, and girls tend to be attracted to design offices, etc. And what’s more, there’s a terrible thing, which is that everyone is convinced that a worker is paid less than the others, and that it’s a dirty job, but no, that’s not it. .

Industry today consists of jobs for highly trained people, better paid than other jobs around them, in an environment that is much more technological and digital, you enter a factory, it’s very automated, in reality.

We have a cultural battle here, to show that this industry has transformed. There are industries which are still very polluting, we must not hide it either. And precisely, they need young engineers to transform production processes, because those who are currently in companies do not have this training.

But it’s true that in recent years, we’ve also heard a lot about relocations, factories closing, hundreds of people unemployed, hasn’t that helped?

No, but because it’s true. French industry had collapsed, because we said to ourselves that it was better to put them in countries where labor was cheaper, and because we said to ourselves that rather than to bring immigrants into our factories, it was better to put the factories there, and have fewer immigrants. We must not hide either that the battle for identity was behind it, too, and so we had that, and we have the image of factories closing. And precisely, but one of the things that is working well is the creation of factories, which is slowly restarting, it’s not crazy, but it’s still important compared to before, since we were going backwards.

There is a reversal, both the profession has changed, and what’s more, France is looking for a new place, and we are in profoundly different industries. Industry today is artificial intelligence, with a whole new relationship with nature. Before industry, it was dominating nature by force. Today, industry means playing with nature, with the wind, with the sun, to obviously produce energy.

And what could ultimately be the risks for the industrial sector in no longer succeeding in attracting young people as it was able to do?

The risk is that the sector does not develop, that it does not progress and that, as a result, we import. Look at what’s happening with solar panels coming from China, it could be true with electric cars. For the French, industry is first and foremost aeronautics, cars, armies and then, let’s admit it, all cosmetic products. These are the four major sectors that we have in mind, and therefore the danger is not developing these sectors.

However, at the moment, there is a battle for the relocation of many activities, we have realized that it is not worth moving something that comes from far away all over the planet, whereas we can make it ready-made. And industry is the great place of innovation, of ecological warfare. The ecological war, which we must win! Of course, there are changes in behavior, lifestyles, consumption, but there is also a huge amount of industrial innovation to wage this war. All countries that are not in this battle will be late in the ecological war. And that is tragic for the future of our children.

Jean Viard’s new book, The ecological individual, Birth of a civilization comes out next week from Editions de l’Aube.