On one of the wooden terraces, bathed in sunlight, laundry has been put out to dry. A little further on, a young man, just awake, finishes his cigarette before getting on his bike. At first sight, this quiet campsite in La Baule, under the pines, would look like any other, except that none of the occupants you meet are on vacation. Because since June, waiters, animators or sellers have been arriving here: the former municipal campsite of Bois d’amour in the famous seaside resort of Loire-Atlantique has been transformed into a village for seasonal workers.
“We had to respond to these two major problems of our traders, which are the recruitment and housing of seasonal workers, explains the mayor LR Franck Louvrier. We don’t have land available, so we have to quickly find other solutions. Here, the campsite could no longer develop, because of its location in a classified wood. Already having four campsites in the town, we therefore decided to change its destination. This is a first in France. »
Furnished and fully equipped
Yennis, 23, has already made her mark. With his roommate, he shares a bunk bed in one of the thirty bungalows available. Brand new, these accommodations of around twenty square meters (which have a kitchenette and a bathroom) are furnished and fully equipped, for a monthly rent of 275 euros. “Compared to what we have known in the past, the small rooms without windows with just a bed and mold, there it is downright good, appreciate the two servers, colleagues for the summer in one of the restaurants of the Barrière group. There are hotplates, the shower is nickel, a parking space… There is just a latch missing in the bathroom, but hey… we are not going to complain! »
If some equipment is missing, and workers are still working on the last accommodations on the site, it means that the project was launched in record time. “Between go and delivery, only eight months have passed,” says Gonzague Noyelle, general manager of Podeliha, the social housing operator who obtained the concession for fifteen years. A particularly short construction time thanks to these wooden modules, manufactured by the Leco company in Loire-Atlantique, which only have to be placed on pedestals. “The networks existed and the roads too, continues Gonzague Noyelle. But the wooded terrain didn’t make things very easy. For some bungalows, which are much more qualitative than mobile homes, particularly in terms of energy performance, we had to go to the shoehorn! »
Some 200 requests
To find the tenants, on the other hand, there was no difficulty, given the rents charged in the private sector and the housing shortage. For this first season, some 200 requests for accommodation were made by merchants and businesses in the city, for only about fifty places (some of which were reserved for volunteer firefighters). “Without this solution, I simply wouldn’t have come,” says Romain, a baker hired as backup for the summer. It’s my boss who took care of everything, and who pays a small part of the rent. I was lucky ! For the young man, staying here is the ideal solution. “I get up at midnight to hire at 1 a.m., which means that I go to bed around 6 p.m., he continues. So in a classic campsite with holidaymakers who are there to enjoy, you can imagine the noise! »
At the start of the school year, accommodation will be offered to other workers in this very dynamic employment pool, led by Airbus or the Chantiers de l’Atlantique. New bungalows should be fitted out by next summer in order to increase the number of places to 80. At the same time, the city has renewed its call for individuals: around forty rooms in private homes, reserved for seasonal workers, have been found for this summer. In two years, according to its mayor, La Baule has created 130 accommodation places for this precious workforce.