This new sector, in full progress, is still not very well known to the general public. It is a real paradox because the technical textiles are present in a multitude of daily gestures. From car seats to the materials of house insulation, to the stringing of the tennis rackets, technical textile is everywhere. Requiring a technology watch without defect, consequent research and development investments, it is a specialists' affair.

Up to the sixties, the history of the textile industry has known very few technical turnovers. For practically a century, its markets of preference are the clothing and the furnishing. In the Nord-Pas de Calais, the textile industry concentrates in the zones of Roubaix-Tourcoing for the wool industry, Lille-Armentières for the cotton and the linen, and Cambrai-Calais for the lace.

If the first synthetic fibres date back to the post-war years, it will be necessary to wait till the 70s and the 80s to begin to speak about new applications of the textile industry: use in road surfaces, in the medical field …

Since then, new synthetic materials have known an unprecedented boom. Flame-resistant fabrics, heatproof and tear-proof fibres, in tons of flexes, anti-UV, anti-acarid, anti-bacteria, etc... Everything is possible... or so will it be one day. All these products of high technology and strong added value naturally find their place in the different industries: automobile equipments, railway materials, medical sector, protection equipment, construction and public works, sports and leisure…

34% of the European market of textiles fibres

Currently, Europe consumes more than six million tons of textile fibres: 34% for clothing, 27% for housing and carpeting, 38% for other industrial technical usages. Technical textile has thus become the biggest consumer of fibres, even when this activity was just barely identified during the 60s.

In the western world, the market grows at a regular rate of 5 to 7% a year. Rhythms have been much more supported in some particular sectors, such as the hygiene, the geotextiles (used in the public work department, particularly road engineering…) and the equipments of individual protection.

Technical textile in France

In Europe as in France, the identification of the Technical Textile field is not well-to-do since many companies often have mixed activities (traditional + technical) within their activity, but we can consider that today more than 400 French companies were listed as having a majority strategic technical textile activity.

They are essentially SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED FIRMS of less than 50 people determinedly turned international

The 2 major regions in France are :

• The Nord Pas de Calais with more than 150 companies for 8 000 employments
• The Rhône-Alpes with about 140 companies for 10 000 employments

In the North, CLUBTEX represents by itself 58 companies for more than 5 000 employments and a turnover of more than 620 M€.