Laguiole knives: the request for geographic identification sows discord between French manufacturers

The famous knife at the bee continues to be talked about.Recognized worldwide, the Laguiole continues its battle for obtaining geographic identification (IG).Guarantee of know-how and manufacturing origin, the precious label of craft and industry products would allow, among other things, French cutlers to protect the export of Laguiole from massive and misleading manufacturing fromfrom China and Pakistan.

But the recognition of the Laguiole knife under the state label also includes issues at the local level.A first IG request filed at the beginning of 2021 by manufacturers of the village of Laguiole, Aveyron, arouses the concern of manufacturers located outside the region.In Thiers, in Puy-de-Dôme, we also claim the ancestral manufacturing of the famous knife and not to be integrated into geographic identification would have a substantial impact for local cutleries.The two cities have not yet given their blades on the geographic identification area to be certified.

Read also "squid game": Laguiole knives identified in the successful series of Netflix

Since the 2014 Consumption Law has protected French craft products by creating a geographic indication, companies can highlight a specific place or region of production and thus assert the precious quality of their products.It is done for the union of Aveyron manufacturers of the Laguiole knife which brings together seven cutlers from the Aubrac plateau, in the north of Aveyron.After a first request for IG addressed to the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) at the start of the year, the union awaits around 11 November the results of the second public inquiry bringing them closer to a final responseof the INPI on obtaining the precious sesame.But two hours away from Laguiole, in Thiers, in Auvergne, another union wishes to carry his voice.

If the small town of Thiers does not bear the name of the famous knife, it is nonetheless the world capital of cutlery, also ancestral manufacturer of the famous knife which weighs in the balance of local manufacturers.On the side of the Laguiole knife union Aubrac Auvergne (CLAA) representing around forty cutlery, the request for geographic identification of Aveyron manufacturers reacted.Approaching the result of the INPI public inquiry, the CLAA is about to file its own request for geographic identification, but with a nuance, it wishes to recognize a manufacturing common to the areas of Laguiole andThiers.

Employment as stake

"We manufacture the same product," insists Aubry Verdier, cutler of Thiers and president of the CLAA union.For the president of the union, there is no doubt that the request for recognition of this know-how must be common to the two cities.While cutlery represents no less than 800 jobs in the Thiernois basin, Aubry Verdier recalls that "the spirit of the law is not there to put in opposition companies which participated in the notoriety of the product but to inform theconsumer, enhance an artisanal or industrial product and develop local employment ”.According to the cutler, the production of the Laguiole represents no less than 40 to 80% of the turnover of half of the companies adhering to the union.Here, the stake is "employment".

Reading a also "made in France" took "a sacred blow" under Emmanuel Macron?

While the Thiernois have claimed the manufacture of Laguiole since the second half of the 19th century and provided certain Aveyron cutlery, the president of the Laguiole union Honoré Durand, see things differently.Honoré Durand defends the idea of "a relocation of the production to be preserved in its rurality".In Laguiole, the steel blade is also the soul of the village.And geographic recognition as a guarantee of quality would lead local cutlery to provide exclusively in the area delimited by the label.Therefore to boost local production."What makes the knife is the blade," defends Honoré Durand for whom the common request for geographic identification would be "a total aberration"."In the same way as an appellation of protected origin, we require local recognition.As for Champagne, there is no reason to recognize a winemaker who produces 100 meters beyond the appellation zone, ”says the president and responsible for the Durand cutlery.In Thiers, the hope of a common identification follows its course and once the file submitted by the CLAA, the union estimates between 9 and 16 months of time to perhaps obtain the label.The case is therefore not finished.

See also - La Cutellerie Laguiole recovered its name, October 22, 2014)