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Like many nations, France has suffered from a global marketing misnomer: Electronics manufacturing can be done cheaper and better in Asia; therefore, education, financial resources, legislation, and business ventures should be shifted to other important industries.
Yet electronics are so ubiquitous that they have become like "salt in the sea," says Pierre-Jean Albrieux, president of IFTEC, a French company and resources and training center specializing in the manufacturing processes of electronics (PCBA, PCB, and design). “It is present everywhere, so we end up not seeing it anymore.”
This has been quite evident in France, which has traditionally been populated with large OEMs in many sectors, a handful of PCB fabricators, and nearly 500 EMS providers. Technology fuels growth across diverse sectors in this European country, from manufacturing and automation to digital transformation, renewable energy, healthcare, transportation, aerospace, and cybersecurity.
France is well known for its defense and aviation industries, like Airbus, Safran, and Dassault. It is also the fourth-largest automobile manufacturer globally, home to companies like Peugeot and Renault.
Companies like IFTEC can easily note and understand fluctuations in the electronics manufacturing market because it tracks the number of people trained per year.
At the beginning of the deindustrialization of the mid-1990s, for example, IFTEC trained 681 people per year. In 2003, little had changed, with 690 trained in that year. But by 2010, the number of trainings increased to 1,049; in 2023, it was 1,711.
“This may mean that there has been a movement of labor forces from mass production structures,” Pierre-Jean says. “Electronics manufacturing has not disappeared at all. It probably decreased and restructured for various applications. We can add environmental considerations, such as the need to produce locally, or geopolitical considerations, but one thing is certain: There will always be electronics manufacturing in France.”
Read the rest of this article, part of a special focus on France in the Summer issue of IPC Community.
