A factory that is less and less ordinary…

One visit can hide another

On March 30, 4th graders from Les Deux Vallées secondary school in Cheylard, in the Vivarais region of France, paid a visit to a seemingly ordinary company. While the more assiduous students had to restrain themselves from yawning at the presentation of the various aeronautical professions, the more sensitive ones may have thought that, after all, a school day away from the four walls that confine dreams was something to be welcomed. On the same day, a second group was also touring the plant, but in a much more interested way, as it was made up entirely of entrepreneurs and elected representatives.

Both visits took place in La Voulte-sur-Rhône (Ardèche), and more specifically at the headquarters of Fregate Aero, which builds “structural sub-assemblies for airplanes and helicopters, using metal, sheet metal and machined parts. Our main customers are Airbus, Dassault and Safran”, according to Frédéric Guimbal, the company’s president. That day, the man with the tense smile dishing out a clumsy promotion for his death box had other things on his mind. Three days earlier, at around 5am on Monday March 27, an arson attack had hit the Fregate Aero group’s second factory, located in the village of Beauchastel, less than five kilometers away.

The result of the attack? A day’s layoff and 300,000 euros in damage, after unknown assailants forced open a ventilation grille at the rear of the building, then set fire to the huge electrical cabinet of a 1,200-ton industrial press and the compressor driving the plant’s geothermal system. And left an anonymous tag on the spot, in red letters, which stated in an alexandrine verse: “Behind the war, ordinary factories”. No more, no less.

For the dreamers and dunces at Cheylard secondary school, it would certainly have been more instructive to visit this second factory, so that they could, for example, see for themselves the damage that a few well-placed liters of fuel can cause in the middle of the night, and even – who knows – draw some inspiration from it. Or, far from the patriotic, civic-minded rubbish inculcated at school, to reflect on the difference between mural poetry that joins words to action, and the ridiculous prose of a man making millions on rivers of corpses, when he addresses his peers: “In fact, they wanted to burn down the factory because it makes weapons? (…) I’m disgusted and saddened to see that we can destroy the work tools of ordinary people who get up every morning (early!) to participate without boasting in the construction of our freedom and our ability to care for and defend ourselves.” (Frédéric Guimbal, on Linkedin, on the same day, with a bonus photo).

Can they come back?

Monday, August 21, 2023. The start of the new school year is fast approaching for former 4th graders at Les Deux Vallées college. Those who probably never knew anything about the drama that agitated the death dealers during their studious visit to their premises, are about to embark on a new school year. Some of them hope that, at the end of their boredom, they’ll be able to pass through the high school gates, while others already suspect that they’ll be directed to become the appendages of machines to be bent, milled and assembled in a local prison. And maybe even at Fregate Aero or one of its competitors in the massacre market.

Monday August 21, 2023 was to be back-to-school day for the 135 employees of the Fregate Aero plant in Beauchastel, after the three-week summer break. So as not to drag their feet too much, some of them may have been thinking the day before that, after all, it’s not so bad to work for a family-run, paternalistic company. One that offers archery and yoga sessions to its salaried servants, and even a full day at the Bourget Air Show for those “who are particularly committed to the company”, who can then admire on site “the eco-responsible stand” of their warmongering industry, “entirely conceived and designed for the occasion” by Anne Heres, architect and nonetheless partner of their CEO.

If we were to take a rather bold gamble, we could even say that, on the eve of the start of the new school year, none of these employees – their noses in the next credit repayment and their hands stained with blood they’d rather ignore – had in mind the terrible question their boss had asked a radio commentator following the attack five months earlier (RMC, April 9): “Can they come back?”

A crackling start to the new school year

On Monday August 21, 2023, it was 1:39 a.m. in Beauchastel when “a neighbor of the Frégate Aero group, which specializes in the manufacture of aeronautical parts for the civilian and military sectors, heard crackling noises coming from the production site”. Nearly sixty firefighters immediately arrived on the scene, reminding us in passing that if their vocation was to save lives, they would have let this factory of death burn to the ground. But they are not firefighters for nothing. Despite their relentless fight against the valiant flames, in the space of a few hours the flames managed to ravage almost 700 square metres of Fregate Aero, while the rest of the workshops were damaged by the thick smoke.

At the end of the morning, criminal identification technicians from Privas took various samples, while the investigation was placed under the direction of the Teil research brigade (Gendarmerie). The entire Beauchastel site is now at a standstill, the 135 employees who have not been relocated to other sites are out of work, and there is of course one question on everyone’s mind.

On the one hand, it seems that the company is focusing on the possibility of bad luck linked to “a potential fault or a false contact” (France Bleu 21/8), which doesn’t sound very serious when you’re certified to deliver parts to Dassault fighter jets and Airbus cop helicopters every day.

On the other hand, journalists (who are no more fire experts than the boss of Fregate Aero, but no less confident than the Préfecture de Police) know that a day is 24 hours long and a week 7 days, and that short circuits that decide to appear in the middle of the night from Sunday to Monday, and on the eve of the resumption of a company’s dirty work, deserve a little more attention. “Fire at Frégate Aero: criminal link not ruled out” was the headline in the local press, before reverting to the more sober “Fire at Frégate Aero: accident or criminal act? (Le Dauphiné, 21 & 22/8).

But for those who are interested in more exciting questions, the fumes of sabotage that came knocking on Fregate Aero’s door, or simply the result of serendipity, remind us all that death can also be found in ordinary buildings, scattered all over the country. And that industry won’t always find shelter, not even behind the war…

[August 22, 2023]

via: sansnom