3 December 2025

4:30 PM – 5:50 PM

Grand Kursaal

Emmanuel Girardet

Emmanuel Girardet graduated as an engineer from ENSMM Besançon (class of 1981), where he specialized in piezoelectricity. After eight years of experience in the Paris region, he became a co-founder of AR Électronique. He has been responsible for its management and development for more than thirty years. Under his leadership, AR Électronique established itself as a leading player in the design and production of highly reliable time-frequency solutions for the demanding aerospace and defense sectors. His career is marked by a clear technological vision, engineering rigor, and an ability to bring together expertise around ambitious industrial objectives. Now 68 years old and recently retired, Emmanuel Girardet leaves a lasting mark in the field of time-frequency technologies and in the structuring of a company recognized in strategic French and international markets.

In this age of luxury, has time itself reached its limits?

This round table discussion on luxury offers an immersion into the heart of Franche-Comté, a region whose identity has been profoundly shaped by the mastery of time. Here, the measurement of time is not just a tool: it becomes matter, thought, culture, and a driving force for transformation. Anchored in a centuries-old watchmaking heritage, this region has established itself as the capital of time, an incubator for microtechniques and technological expertise capable of creating the infinitely small. Limits, landmarks, and time markers become points of reference for understanding the evolution of a constantly changing biotope in Franche-Comté and Besançon. Around the table, a geographer, a high-frequency entrepreneur, the inventor of silicon micromotors and The Time Changer watch, designers, and luxury artisans will share their perception of time and how it is linked to the world of watchmaking. Together, they will offer a cross-disciplinary reading of the roots, ruptures, and innovations that today fuel technical luxury excellence and the vision of tomorrow.