Baptiste Morin 06:07, November 21, 2022
Construction work on a spinning factory begins this Monday morning in Morlaix, Brittany.
This will be the fourth site of its kind to open in France.
An important event which illustrates the battle waged for three years now by the flax industry to regain industrial sovereignty in France.
France is the first flax producer in the world.
Each year, around 150,000 tons are produced, but 80% of these tons are exported.
The linen is spun, woven, and very often worked elsewhere because in the 1990s, the spinning mills disappeared from the territory.
The phenomenon has been reversed for three years now, and with the construction of a fourth spinning factory, the work of which begins this Monday morning in Morlaix, in Brittany, reindustrialization is progressing.
But the road is still long.
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The labor cost problem
For example, the Bordeaux brand Asphalte sells a linen shirt.
If the material comes from France, the manufacturing is done in Portugal because the labor is cheaper.
“On the confection, there are a lot of manual steps”, explains Constance Chassany, production manager at Asphalte at the microphone of Europe 1. “Unless you succeed in automating, and therefore remove or at least reduce the factor cost of labor in the final price, it will be very difficult to have accessible products in design in France."
As proof, the French brand Sème has launched its first 100% French linen jeans.
But the price attests to it at nearly 250 euros.