Cannes, November 24th, 2014 - Thales Alenia Space is proud to announce that its Cannes and Toulouse plants in France have been certified as "disability-friendly workplaces", in compliance with the AFNOR X50-783* standard. This major step forward clearly reflects the Thales group's proactive equal opportunity policy that has been applied since 1992. It is designed to facilitate and support the integration of disabled people in the workplace. Thales Alenia Space was certified during France's national week for employment of the disabled, from November 17 to 23, 2014. For the seventh year in a row, Thales Alenia Space took a major role in this event, especially by organizing in-house disability awareness-raising days at its Cannes and Toulouse plants and participating in Employment & Disability forums.

To earn "disability-friendly workplace" certification, both Thales Alenia Space plants showed their commitment to compliance with the various areas listed in the AFNOR standard, including hiring and continued employment, raising the awareness of all employees, information access and welcoming persons with disabilities.

The plants made major changes to both premises and working conditions, including the installation of elevators or ramps for people with reduced mobility, adapting workstations according to the needs of disabled employee, the purchase of prostheses and ergonomic chairs, special evacuation chairs in case of fire, lighted emergency exit indicators for the hearing impaired, construction of disabled access toilets, parking spaces, etc. These are just a few of the many concrete examples of how the two Thales Alenia Space plants complied with the AFNOR standard.

"We are delighted to have earned this certification, which rewards the extensive work by Thales Alenia Space over the last seven years to support our current and future disabled employees," said Béatrice Bretegnier, head of human resources at the Cannes plant. "While the legal obligation is for 6 percent of the workforce to be people with disabilities, our current ratios of 5.25% at Toulouse, and 5.4% at Cannes are climbing steadily, year after year," added Claude Carbonneau, head of human resources at the Toulouse plant. Both agree that there is still room for progress, and the medium-term goal is obviously to exceed 6 percent, which would be a very satisfactory achievement in favor of the disabled.


* AFNOR X50-783: the standard that is used as the benchmark for organizations that want to deploy a disabled employee policy, and improve their hiring of these persons. Comprising 62 recommendations, the standard includes provisions for access to information, the hiring of disabled persons, changes to workstations, career development and access to premises.


About Thales Alenia Space

Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Finmeccanica (33%), is a key European player in space telecommunications, navigation, Earth observation, exploration and orbital infrastructures. Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio form the two parent companies' "Space Alliance", which offers a complete range of services and solutions. Because of its unrivaled expertise in dual (civil/military) missions, constellations, flexible payloads, altimetry, meteorology and high-resolution optical and radar instruments, Thales Alenia Space is the natural partner to countries that want to expand their space program. The company posted consolidated revenues in excess of 2 billion euros in 2013, and has 7,500 employees in six countries. www.thalesaleniaspace.com


Thales Alenia Space Press Contacts:

Sandrine Bielecki    
Tel: +33 (0)4 92 92 70 94    
sandrine.bielecki@thalesaleniaspace.com

Tarik Lahlou    
Tel: +33 (0)4 92 92 68 45    
tarik.lahlou@thalesaleniaspace.com

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