des artisans fuient Bordeaux, lassés des bouchons quotidiens sur la rocade
No more arrivals on site at eight or nine o’clock. Today, the artisans who work in Bordeaux but live outside sometimes lose half a day on the road to go to a customer. “It has become unlivable”, deplores Kevin Agasse, multi-job craftsman at Eysines. The successive confinements had diluted traffic on the main Girondins axes, but traffic has practically returned to normal on the Bordeaux bypass, sometimes even with travel times longer than those before the health crisis. “I decided to shift my hours to finish a little later”, explains the thirty-something. “It is often that we work two hours more, telling ourselves that in any case, we will eat them in transport. So we might as well debauchery two hours later.”
We are considering taking construction sites according to the distance to be covered. – Kevin Agasse, multi-job craftsman at Eysines
“We are not going to say that we are doing fewer sites, we are doing them. But suddenly, instead of doing a ten hour day, you are going to do twelve”, continues Kevin Agasse. “You end up with days to lengthen because of the traffic difficulties.” A situation that weight on the morality of the craftsman. “We are much more tired. Sometimes, to cover two kilometers you will spend half an hour or even an hour.” According to him, the perfect solution is all found. “To relocate”, he answers tit for tat. “It would surely be much easier to live in a city or a village further out, with perhaps a more diffuse clientele, but at least with the possibility of driving.”
A risk of shortage
Alain, him, a past the pas. He now refuses all the sites offered in Bordeaux. His carpentry business is based in Hostens, in the South of Gironde. “We stay in the Bordeaux suburbs, as far as Léognan or even Bègles. But Bordeaux, I no longer want to go there”, explains the craftsman. “These commuting times are additional charges for the company, since it is considered as overtime. And during this time, the work does not advance. So I prefer to go to work 60 kilometers in the countryside, rather than in Bordeaux 40 kilometers away. “
“Sometimes you have a day and a half lost in transport when you come to work in Bordeaux for a week”, deplores Éric Antenni, carpenter in the South-Gironde and elected to Capeb, the employers’ union of building craftsmen. “It makes them want to come there at all. So they take care of the sites on which they were committed, but they no longer make any commitments on future sites.” These craftsmen must therefore cover other geographical areas to compensate. “Naturally, they choose a clientele around Bordeaux, in the metropolis at first, but very quickly they go within a radius of 60 kilometers.”
When we talk to them about going to work in Bordeaux, a city that they like with superb construction sites, they fall in love completely because it is three or four hours wasted during the day. – Éric Antenni, elected to Capeb
But in the end, it could lead to a shortage of certain artisans in Bordeaux. “Qualified craftspeople will look for activity around Bordeaux”, explains Éric Antenni. “There is a risk that companies will appear which, for their part, will have much less qualifications, with exorbitant amounts and a clientele that will not be satisfied. Some will no longer have the means to do work at home.” According to him, 70% of Capeb members are considering stopping the construction sites in Bordeaux.