Le Figaro opened the doors of the Afa-Exacompta factory, the largest Parisian industrial site, which manufactures millions of diaries

It's impossible not to notice the building, it is so majestic. On the banks of the Saint-Martin canal, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, everyone knows the Afa-Exacompta factory, installed here since 1947. One of the few still in operation in the capital. But few have had the chance to visit it. Behind its high walls lies the largest Parisian industrial site, where millions of diaries are discreetly manufactured each year. Three and a half million every year to be exact, available in all its forms. Large or small, classic or original, with or without spirals, daily or weekly. And for all prices. Five days a week, more than a hundred workers are busy in the various workshops on the site, with as much know-how as goes into the manufacturing stages of this small product well known to the French.

We are here at the head office of Exacompta-Clairefontaine, which is also that of the lesser-known company called Afa. For “Diary making workshops”. But if the famous Clairefontaine notebooks are not manufactured on site, only certain filing tools, it is mainly diaries and other small office stationery products that are imagined and then created there. A family history that dates back to the very beginning of the 20th century, so…