The ticking of the clock is drowned out by the hum of the coffee maker. The red hands indicate 4:58 a.m. Manu, roads agent, enters the break room of the Pont-du-Fossé departmental technical center and nods to Raphaël, the team leader. A cup of coffee, black, without sugar, and off you go. Or rather, here we go again. “We went to reload the machine,” says Manu. Because Emmanuel Brochier and his partner, Laurent Treffel, have been on the road since 4 a.m. “I had to call them earlier this morning, after taking a walk around half past two,” explains Raphaël Charles. It rained and it was icy. » Outside, the backhoe squeals as it dumps a mountain of salt onto the back of a snowplow.
“Hey, there it shines! » point out Manu and Laurent in stereo. There, it's a few kilometers higher, on the road to Orcières. In the cabin of their salt spreader, a well-oiled machine starts up. Laurent, his eyes fixed on the wet road, keeps his hand…
