On this rainy morning, a dozen final year students of the vocational baccalaureate river transport of the Emile-Mathis polyvalent high school in Schiltigheim (Bas-Rhin) take turns from job to post on the "Prinses Irene", the school's training boat, a 54-metre-long building.

Vocational high schools were set up as a "national cause" in early May by President Emmanuel Macron, who announced an additional billion euros each year for the sector.

Chaperoned by three teachers, the students left for a day of navigation on the Rhine and the basins of the port of Strasbourg.

In the wheelhouse, it is the turn of Quentin Guillaume, 18, to be at the controls for a few tens of minutes.

This course is one of the few in France to offer training in river transport professions, with the professional baccalaureate of Montélimar (Drôme) and the CFA of inland navigation in Tremblay-sur-Mauldre (Yvelines), explains Didier Lutz, their navigation teacher.

"Mercato"

Objective: in three years, from the second to the final year, to prepare students to work in the river transport of goods or passengers.

Recently, the school has acquired an impressive river driving simulator: financed to the tune of 250,000 euros by the Grand Est region, it reproduces a cockpit and allows students to be evaluated on a wide range of situations.

Luca Feidt, 17, fell into river navigation as a child: "my father was the headmaster of the school" and "I went on the +Prinses Irene+ when I was seven years old. Since then, I have only thought about that (...) A real passion", explains this first-year student, who would see himself one day on a "passenger boat (...) on the great rivers".

When leaving this sector, baccalaureate holders do not have a pilot's license but are operational for several other positions, bridge man for example. Then, after a few years of sailing, they will be able to pass their license, which Emile-Mathis also prepares during "intensive sessions", explains Mr. Lutz.

In the cockpit of the "Prinses Irène", a training boat at the Emile-Mathis polyvalent high school in Schiltigheim (Bas-Rhin), May 10, 2023 © SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP

According to him, this professional baccalaureate is a real sesame for employment in a sector where "we are looking for staff everywhere (...) At the beginning of the season, a transfer window is set up, the companies outbid to recover the captains of other companies."

The recent tightening of European standards, more demanding on the number of days of navigation necessary for the training of pilots, causes "tension at the level of (these) jobs", says one with Entreprises Fluviales de France (E2F), which represents professionals in a sector (craftsmen boatmen, shipowners, cruise passengers ...) that brings together a thousand companies and employs nearly 8,000 employees.

"Unknown" sector

Another element: since the Covid, the "rise of river tourism" requires even more qualified personnel to pilot the boats that ply European rivers, according to E2F: in total, "we lack about 10% of our workforce, all positions combined".

However, the sector remains "unknown" in France, says Philippe Rivieyran, principal of the school. "In the Netherlands, there is a real culture. In France, we have a lot of canals, a wide maritime facade but we know very little about these trades."

The last few years have also been disrupted by lockdowns and the school has not been able to properly organize open days. Result: fewer promotions, below the 72 students that can accommodate the curriculum over the three years.

Yet it is "clearly a sector of the future. You only have to see the soft eyes that companies make us, "slips Mr. Rivieyran.

A high school student sails on the "Prinses Irene", the training boat of the Emile-Mathis polyvalent high school in Schiltigheim (Bas-Rhin), on May 10, 2023 in Strasbourg © SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP

"Soft eyes" that sometimes manifest themselves even before the end of the course: admitted to first after a BTS and a year of interim, Alexandre Kany, 21, comes out of an "internship in +passengers+": "My CV pleased them, they have already expressed the wish to hire me ..."

© 2023 AFP