Page 38 - Best of 2019 English

The pride of Saint-Florentin
This is where the headquarters of Mannesmann Precision Tubes France are located. Here in Burgundy, the Salzgitter company produces precision tubes of the highest quality at two sites
As you travel along any of the various routes to Saint-Florentin, coming from Paris, you quickly leave the
hustle and bustle of the
already manufacturing for the future here,” says director Alain Laplaud, pointing to an area in the
factory halls that stands out from the rest of the interior due to its modern
fittings: this is where components for electric cars are produced. The tubes produced by Mannesmann
Precision Tubes in Saint-Floren- tin are destined for the automo- tive industry and its suppliers. What is notable here – as Alain Laplaud points out with some pride – is that these are welded (40 % of production) and seam- less, drawn precision steel tubes of the very highest quality cate- gory. Laplaud, who has managed the plant since 2012, remarks on the high export rate: “Unlike in the past, more than 60 % of our output is now exported.”
city behind you: there are very few villages here. This is where a visitor from Germany can begin to find out something about France: the country offers more space to live than the densely populated Federal Republic of Germany.
Saint-Florentin has a population of just 4,400, but there are still signs in the town center pointing the way to the industrial estate – the “Zone Industrielle La Saunière”. This luxury is done away with at the very next junction – just as the companies based there save themselves the trouble of in- cluding street names in
their addresses, let alone
house numbers. The
address of Mannesmann Precision Tubes France headquarters is simply
“La Saunière”.
The idyll abruptly comes an end as you pass through the factory gates, however. “We’re
The signs at the entrance to the town
Population density
At its second plant in Vitry-Le- François, 135 km away, Mannesmann Preci-
sion Tubes France also produces tubes mainly destined for the automo- tive sector, but also for the mechanical and plant engineering industry and the energy sector. Here, only a quarter of produc- tion remains in France.
38 FRANCE
In France there are 106 residents per square kilometer. In Germany the figure is more than double this (231 residents/km2). Almost one in five French people (19.5 %) live in the Paris area. Leaving this region aside, there are 82 residents to one square kilometer in the rest of the country.