"The blur of "made in France"? Overview of the (customs!) law applicable to made in ".

The headline in Le Figaro on 2 February 2021 read: "Do costume jewellery shine because of its opacity?", before giving the floor to Camille Riou, founder of LOU YETU, a brand that was apparently praised and then rejected with equal force by the same keyboard community.

"Didn't you go too far in claiming to be made in France?" asked Le Figaro. Camille Riou replies: "This controversy highlights the fact that many questions are being asked about 'made in France'. The public doesn't really understand what this term means. A pertinent answer that raises two opposing but related issues: 

• Made in" implies compliance with complex but clear and strictly applied customs rules;

• legal compliance is apparently worth very little in the face of what everyone understands by this expression, which is English to boot.

The "made in France" is a commercial argument, optional except in exceptional cases, which does not suffer from any ambiguity or vagueness... (1) provided that one masters the complex customs rules specific to the determination of "non-preferential origin" and (2) provided that the buyer understands (after translation!) that "made in France" does not necessarily mean 100% French.

1. There is no legal uncertainty about the customs rules that allow for a "made in France" label, which corresponds to the non-preferential origin of goods. What does "non-preferential origin" mean? It is difficult to explain here in a few lines, except by means of highly simplified examples. It is a matter of determining the "nationality" of a good, i.e. the country where the "last substantial transformation" took place. By way of illustration only, the following examples are given 

• a specific transformation (cutting and sewing Argentinian leather in France to make a bracelet);

• In France, the work carried out on Argentinian leather is substantial if it results in a new product, falling under a different tariff code from that of the raw material (each commodity corresponds to a numerical code of 4, 6, 8 or 10 digits). This is the so-called "change of tariff heading" rule. Argentine leather enters the factory, a French bracelet leaves;  

• the "French share" if the value of each French component as well as the cost of French labour exceeds a certain percentage compared to the price of components of third-party origin (e.g. Argentina/Tunisia).

Non-preferential origin therefore consists in determining THE SINGLE nationality of a piece of jewellery, even though the elements that make it up (the gold, the leather strap, the clasp, the stone, etc.) come from 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 is supplied in Argentina! In absolute terms, this jewel has no country, or rather, five. But, by legal fiction, it is possible to determine THE ONLY country of origin of the jewel.

No "made in France" without mastering the rules of non-preferential origin, which it is impossible to master without knowing the customs fundamentals of species, origin and value. Quite a programme!

2. This article from Le Figaro also teaches us that "legal" is not necessarily a bulwark against the feelings/emotions/expectations/demands - legitimate by definition - of a community of Instagrammers, who understand that "made in France" does not necessarily mean 100% French.

The law of EU regulations is not the law of social networks.