ARTICLE "The blur of "made in France"? An overview of the (customs!) law applicable to made in" - February 4, 2021
Made in France does not necessarily mean 100% French. Applying a "made in" label implies compliance with complex but clear and strictly applied customs regulations.
Made in France" is a commercial argument, which is optional with a few exceptions, and leaves no room for ambiguity or vagueness... (1) as long as you master the complex customs rules for determining "non-preferential origin", and (2) as long as the buyer understands (after translation!) that "made in France" does not necessarily mean 100% French.
1. There's no legal ambiguity about the customs rules for affixing a "made in France" label, which corresponds to the non-preferential origin of goods. What does "non-preferential origin" mean? It's difficult to explain here in just a few lines, except by way of highly simplified examples. It involves determining the "nationality" of a good, i.e. that of the country where the "last substantial transformation" took place. For illustrative purposes only, the following examples are given:
- substantial transformation (cutting and sewing Argentinian leather in France to make a bracelet);
- substantial the work carried out in France on Argentinian leather, if it is such that it results in a new product, covered by a different tariff code from that of the raw material (each commodity corresponds to a 4-, 6-, 8- or 10-digit numerical code). This is known as the "change of tariff heading" rule. Argentine leather enters the factory, a French bracelet leaves;
- substantial "French share" if the value of each French component and the cost of French labor exceed a certain percentage of the price of third-party components (Argentina/Tunisia, for example).
Non-preferential origin therefore consists in determining THE SINGLE nationality of a piece of jewelry, for example, even though its component parts (the gold, the leather strap, the clasp, the stone, etc.) originate in different countries and the successive manufacturing operations (melting the gold, cutting the leather, gilding the clasp, etc.) are carried out in one or more countries. Beware: the supplier of the manufacturer who claims to be "made in" may be a French company... which buys its supplies in Argentina! In absolute terms, this jewel has no homeland, or rather, five. But, by legal fiction, it is possible to determine the jewel's ONLY country of origin.
No "made in France" without mastering the rules of non-preferential origin, which are impossible to master without knowing the customs fundamentals of species, origin and value.