Industry and Defense Week in the 64: Industries still waiting for contracts

This highlights that the meeting with high school students – who have little industrial culture – allowed them to discover “little-known” trades and the related opportunities. “Boilermakers, welders, fitters-assemblers for aeronautics: so many trades that are in high demand, not too attractive and have been for years. To the point that we had to create our own Vocational Training Center to train people internally. This also allows us to remind that the industry is as much for men as for women! Everyone has a chance!”

Recruitment barriers

An essential awareness of the industrial world, as confirmed by Vincent Lemaire, CEO of Mecapole Occitanie, based in Nogaro in the Gers. “We all emphasize today recruitment issues, facing increasingly demanding markets and regulations. So, we need future recruits to be familiar with industrial environments from their training.”

Opportunity to recall the triptych of recruitment barriers: “housing, driver’s license, and car. In rural areas, it is difficult to find candidates.”

Industrials still waiting

Another issue that quickly comes to the lips of industrialists is the “gap between political discourse and the reality of the order book.” And the Gersois industrialist adds: “In early 2026, unfortunately, given the number of armed conflicts, we expected an explosion of needs and orders, with a growth rate around 20%. We even anticipated this, especially by strengthening our network of subcontractors. Now, we are in April, and it is clear that, despite the communication made by politicians, we do not have these volumes. Is it worrisome? No, because we know that these things take time to implement. But we are waiting for them. We are ready to produce!”

A shared observation by Thierry Haure-Mirande, CEO of the Bearn group Aeroprotec. He recalls, in the preamble, the “strong growth” of the aeronautical and defense sectors, adding that events like the one in Pau allow “preparing for the future and ensuring national defense programs.”

But he takes the opportunity to lament: “The problem remains the same, namely orders. Yes, announcements are made, are exploited, but at the industrial level, they are not materialized. Yet we are ready, and have been for a long time. This gap, of political origin and not administrative, is not very healthy. Many defense companies have also suffered, by the end of 2025, from the chaotic budget vote.”