A company highlights brand practices to reveal makeup products from China.
It is a scourge that nestles on the shelves of our supermarkets. Between March and April, the Better Things application and the Fédération Indépendante du Made in France scrutinized eight retail brands, including Carrefour, Leclerc and King Cadeau.
Alerted by hundreds of reports, they identified 500 references of non-food products which borrow all the codes of “Made in France” without having been manufactured in France. 56% of them were even made in China. This sleight of hand on the origin is called francolavage. “This is a practice that we observed in all the brands we visited, although it should be noted that it was a little more frequent at Auchan and Carrefour,” underlines Stéphane Devulder, founder of Better Things.
Disguising a toy to make it appear that it was made in France means being able to sell it more, or more expensively. So to avoid falling into the trap, Stéphane Devulder gives us the keys to unmasking francolavage.
First reflex: track down ambiguous mentions, “Designed in France”, “Designed in France”, “French brand”. They are almost always accompanied by symbols of the country, starting with the tricolor flag, present in 75% of these cases.
Faced with this vague vocabulary, Stéphane Devulder recommends being systematically wary. Brands that actually manufacture on national territory have nothing to hide: they clearly indicate, “Made in France”, “Produced in France”, or via a certification such as “Origine France Garantie”. The absence of these mentions should alert you.
The founder of Better Things also warns against the cuckoo strategy. This technique consists of drowning, within the same department, a few real “Made in France” products among a majority of imported articles which copy the visual codes. Result: the consumer sees nothing but fire.
To unmask the subterfuge, you have to examine the back of the packaging, in the small print. The country of origin is hidden there, sometimes under obscure mentions, such as “Made in PRC” (People’s Republic of China). “It even happens that the origin of the product is not indicated,” regrets Stéphane Devulder.
This is because “unlike food products, the indication of origin on non-food products is not subject to any obligation in the European Union (for reasons of respect for competition between Member States). Displaying origin is therefore a purely voluntary initiative on the part of brands.”
“We must distinguish francolavage from deceptive commercial practice,” believes the founder of Better Things. Brands will play with colors and patterns, without ever explicitly writing “Made in France”, which is perfectly legal. An ambiguity that the founder of Better Things would like to see disappear.
To remedy this, Stéphane Devulder wants the legislator to strictly regulate the use of “Made in France” markers and symbols, drawing inspiration from the Swiss model. On the other side of the Alps, the Swissness law protects the use of the term “Switzerland” and the Swiss cross, the national symbol.
The fact remains that francolavage is difficult to legislate because the Made in France players also produce a part abroad. “Let’s take Petit Bateau: the brand manufactures 300,000 products in its Troyes factory, compared to 3 million in Marrakech. It’s an uncomfortable situation for us, defenders of Made in France, because Petit Bateau remains a French industrial player, creating jobs in the region”, despite a large part of the production based abroad.
