Rather than reducing the trees in this 8 ha park that have been felled into firewood, the Angevine has them transformed by the mobile sawmill of Pescheseul, an impressive machine on wheels, which arrives at home pulled by a pick-up , powered by a generator, sawing horizontally trunks up to 7 meters.

"The poplar was used to make the roof of a shelter, the oak to make benches. The more people sit, the more the kangaroo gains confidence and gets closer," she explains.

"If we had to buy the 13 m3 we used, we would have had to pay four times more".

Muriel Laurendeau, director of the Kangaroo Garden and her wooden shelter, sawn and manufactured on site thanks to a mobile sawmill, in La Possonnière, western France, February 3, 2022 JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER AFP

Since the start of the health crisis, the price of wood has soared and delivery delays have severely handicapped the French sector, which employs 400,000 people, due to disorganization of the production chain and increased demand. , driven by China and the United States.

Twenty kilometers away, the "Autour du Bois" store has been using the mobile sawmill for 15 years to saw oak and Douglas fir purchased in the region.

Customers are both landscapers and private individuals, for requests ranging from pergolas to fence posts and kitchen worktops.

"We transform 45 m3 of pine and 15 m3 of oak, there is really a local service", underlines the manager Valérie Sécher.

"We make tailor-made and we transform atypical logs", adds the young woman, who denounces the inflation of prices, the wood being sold "at auction, therefore to the highest bidder".

She expects further tensions on supplies with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

The mobile sawmill of Pescheseul came to manufacture benches at the wallabies leisure park, in La Possonniere, Maine-et-Loire, on February 3, 2022 JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER AFP

"build with your trees!"

Created after the 1999 storm, the mobile sawmill in Pescheseul, south-west of Le Mans, is at the heart of a 750-hectare forest massif.

Handled by metal fingers in a shattering noise, the trunks are sawn under a shed according to measurements provided by customers, joiners, carpenters or individuals.

"In 1999, all the trees were down, the owners no longer knew what to do with their wood", recalls Antoine d'Amécourt, co-founder and manager of the Pescheseul rural land group.

"In the past, there was a sawmill per canton, today there is not always one per department. We tell our customers + Build with your trees +. With a tree we can do nothing, but with a plank we have a hut for the children, a niche for the dog, a cage for the hens, shelves", he lists.

The machine spends half the time in Pescheseul, the other half with its customers, within a radius of a hundred kilometres.

Paulo Fernandes uses the mobile sawmill to cut a trunk into planks on site in La Possonniere, Maine-et-Loire, February 3, 2022 JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER AFP

"This oak was visibly dead on its feet, there are holes of the great capricorn. It does not detract from its solidity but an architect would not want it, whereas we can value it", observes the Sarthois, also president of Fransylva, the main private forestry union.

"It prevents the wood from rotting in the forest", adds Paulo Fernandes, the co-manager.

With the increase in the share of renewable materials in construction, wood is on the rise.

The fact remains that France still does little processing of its wood due to the weakness of its processing industry.

"Mobile sawmills have their uses, we have a benevolent look at them because it is a short and direct circuit, but they will not solve the problems of wood supply on their own", observes Nicolas Douzain, however. general delegate of the National Federation of Wood, recalling that in 2021, "30% of French oaks were exported".

© 2022 AFP