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The former minister and MP Arnaud Montebourg on the stand of the company Bleu Blanc Ruche which he is the co-founder and the president, November 8 at the show Made in France. RFI / Nicolas Sanders

Building on its success with consumers, the Made in France show returns to Paris, Porte de Versailles, for an 8th edition, from November 8 to 11, 2019. Four days in a row, some 70,000 visitors will walk the aisles of this great event. French know-how where more than 500 exhibitors, in all sectors of activity, present their products made in France.

Beauty products, gastronomy of course, high-tech, innovation, leisure, fashion and many other sectors are represented at the Made in France show. A true showcase for these companies who have made the choice to carry out in France the essential steps of the manufacture of their products. That is to say, the key moments where a French know-how intervenes.

The raw material is sometimes of foreign origin for a reason in fact very simple: we know how to do a lot of things in France, but we do not have all the ingredients to achieve it. This is the case of the textile, an essential area since it directly concerns the clothes that one wears every day. France produces an infinitesimal quantity of cotton each year, thus prohibiting the production of French textiles from a hexagonal cotton. So you have to go buy cotton from a producing country, with India at the top.

This is the case of the Tissage de l'Ouest company, established in Morlaix in Finistère (29), and specialized in household linen. A story that begins in 1996 with the brand At ease Breizh which declines clothes and accessories for the home stamped with the names of towns and places Breton. " We bought a weaving in Cholet and we integrated it into our group, to weave the fabric at home in France, and make it up, " says Erwann Créac'h, director of À l'aise Breizh and the brand. Weaving of the West , on its stand of the exhibition of Made in France.

" Cotton is spun, woven, made, printed in France "

Draped with an apron of his brand stamped with an embroidered lobster, the entrepreneur explains that he gave up making linen in Portugal, the quality being in his eyes not at the rendezvous. The factory found in Cholet was not in a very good financial situation, unlike At ease Breizh who could afford to buy it, explains our interlocutor. " We continued in Cholet while people retire, and we brought the plant to Morlaix since March 2018, " says Erwann Créac'h, before adding: " We wanted things to be done at home. , in Brittany, so now in Morlaix we do weaving, making and printing, three very different trades. While Western Weaving works primarily for the Breton brand, it also supplies products internationally. In this case, it is the French nationality that is put forward, rather than the Breton origin. " We are starting to sell well in Japan and the United States, people want to have the image of Made in France, because unfortunately Britain is not very well known in Japan or the United States, " he says. .

The stand of the company Tissages de l'Ouest at the Salon du Made in France, in Paris, on November 8th. RFI / Nicolas Sanders

Erwann Créac'h assures, if cotton comes from India, for example, it is well and truly spun in France, which makes it all the difference: " The cotton is spun, woven, made, printed in France. So 97% of the work is done in our factories in Morlaix. "Only a small part of the production, T-shirts or shirts, remains assured in Portugal or Morocco, says one who wants to head a" transparent French brand ", ensuring in passing that the origin of products is fully quoted on the labels. A "transparency" he says is not the fact of the entire French textile sector.

Made in France at the service of biodiversity with Arnaud Montebourg

Defending the ability to produce on French soil was the commitment of Arnaud Montebourg, fiery Minister of Productive Recovery in 2012. Combining action with words, the minister had proudly posed in sailor Armor Lux « made in France "on the front page of a magazine, holding in her arms a Moulinex food processor. Herald of defense and illustration of the "buy French", Arnaud Montebourg has since left his political clothes to become a business leader, but always serving the same creed. With the company Bleu Blanc Ruche which he co-founded and the president, the former tenant of Bercy now promotes a 100% French honey neither mixed nor imported.

On his booth at the Made in France show, the former minister chained sales of jars of honey, always prompt to let his various qualities taste to visitors. Honey made in France, but with the concern to repopulate the national territory in bees. Or when economic patriotism goes hand in hand with the protection of biodiversity: " Restocking honey consists of building a society of mutual aid, which is Bleu Blanc Hive between the consumer and the beekeeper. We buy the honeys more expensive, in return the beekeeper presents plans for restocking to increase his colonies. The company raises its purchase price to finance the repopulation of bees " with the support of consumers, " warns Arnaud Montebourg, who ensures that this extra cost is spread " invisibly and painlessly " on the price of the pot. " Last year, our 45 beekeepers, to whom we bought 94 tons at a price between 5% and 18% more expensive than the market, have planted 2,732 additional hives, that's 160 million bees, " he claims. he not without pride. Today, there are 13 million beehives in Western Europe, including 500 000 in France, according to a report published in 2014 by INRA: " It's a start, we'll have to work ", promises the former political become boss.

" You are selling sugar at the price of honey "

Available for sale online on the company's website, Bleu Blanc Ruche honeys are distributed in a few Parisian shops, but the choice has been made to favor home selling, because " it allows a relationship with customers alike. nature that we have here [the Salon] where we can explain the problem of the bee, "adds Arnaud Montebourg. According to a recent poll by the BVA institute, the French are ready to spend 10% more to buy "made in France". But the relationship with the consumer implies to warn and inform him. Arnaud Montebourg does not fail to say that " 30% of the honeys of first price in supermarkets have been spotted as adulterated, adulterated, you are selling sugar at the price of honey. Whenever you see mixing, European Union or Union, you have a one in three chance of falling on a fraudulent honey . "

More than a label, the "made in France" - which he was the instigator - is " a movement of society ", analyzes the one who, leaving politics, far from going to collect the attendance fees in the councils of administration, has been converted into tricolor entrepreneurship. The "made in France", a socio-economic dynamic well understood by the French, according to Arnaud Montebourg who with a certain irony compares purchase and election: " The French now resonate '' job '' when they buy, the French vote with their Blue card every day is better than with a ballot every five years ... Every day they have power, and this power they can do extraordinary things. "