Deconstructing the term ‘Made in France.’

last updated 8 January 2015

France

Philippe Martin

Politicians are puffed up with misplaced outrage, said Philippe Martin in Paris’ Libération. They’ve just discovered that a product manufactured overseas, in Africa, can still be sold under the “Made in France” label. Socialist presidential candidate Ségolène Royal calls this “scandalous.” But it isn’t new. The rule has always been that the “Made in France” label can be used if at least 45 percent of the added value was created in France. What has changed is that, with globalization, the final cost of a product bears little resemblance to the cost of producing it with cheap foreign labor. To further complicate the calculus, the process of adding value can be divvied up among multiple countries. For example, one factory might cut the leather, the next sew the sole, the next assemble the shoe. Soon we will have reached the point where “international commerce is a trade in tasks, rather than a trade in goods.”