France Has Millions of Unsold Masks
Shortly after the closure was lifted, the French market suddenly experienced a huge change from "one mask is hard to find" to "mask surplus". Although the government has repeatedly encouraged enterprises and the public to buy masks made in France, how to deal with unsalable masks is still a big problem facing France.The Associated Press reported on the 13th that France currently needs to sell about 20 million surplus cloth masks. French Finance Minister Panier Lunacher said that during the pandemic, about 450 enterprises switched to manufacturing cloth masks, including top luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Kaiyun and Chanel. The above-mentioned enterprises have also won praise from the French government. However, in the past two weeks, many enterprises have found that orders have "plummeted or even been cancelled directly".
"Although the demand was strong at the beginning, the market quickly solidified and every company and organization choose their suppliers, but not necessarily from France." "France Panties" brand founder Gilbert said. At the request of the Ministry of Finance, he took up the post of ambassador for French fabric masks, whose task was to publicize the fabric masks made in France. Even President Macron personally "peddle the goods" and wore a black mask with a national flag label to inspect schools in May, emphasizing "rebuilding the sovereignty of masks". However, it did not change the fact that French masks encounter poor sales.
Agence France Presse believes that there are many reasons why French masks are not sold well, and French people prefer Chinese masks. Medical masks imported from China cost about 0.55 euros each. French cloth masks average between 3 and 5 euros, but can be reused 20 times. Although French masks are actually cheaper in terms of usage, consumers do not count. In addition, the core material of medical masks is meltblown cloth, almost all of which are produced in Asia. A factory in the coastal province of Amor in western France, which could produce 200 million medical masks annually, closed in 2018 due to a lack of orders. Although the French government advocates "rebuilding mask sovereignty", it cannot rebuild technology, raw materials and labor in a short time.