The ITER training site

At an unrelenting pace they come and go, more than ten giant scrapers who take the rubble from the highest point of the site and use it to fill up the lowest spots. Their drivers, who are between 20 and 25 years old, now perfectly control every single manoeuvre.

They have all completed a two-month specific training course according to the machine they operate (dumper trucks, compactors, sprinkler lorries). This training was given on site by instructors from Valerian, the company in charge of these machines, and also by outside instructors. "The training begins with basic information on security and how to operate the equipment (about 80 hours), and then progressively every driver gets to practise handling these huge machines which weigh several tens of tons and are more than four metres high," explains one of the instructors.

Once they have obtained their certificate of competence, they can start moving around the 2,3 million cubic metres of rubble on site, almost the equivalent of the pyramid of Kheops, estimated at more than 2,5 million cubic metres.