Alliance France Cuir explains complex sheepskin dynamic
Recent figures from Alliance France Cuir have consistently shown growth in the value of exports of raw sheepskins. In the first 11 months of 2025, exports of this raw material brought in €13.8 million, an increase of 28% year on year.
However, exports of sheepskin leather from France’s famous small-skin tanneries fell in value over the same period. Shipments of finished sheepskin leather over the same period brought in €37.6 million, a fall of 16% compared to the figure for the January-November period in 2024.
New analysis from Alliance France Cuir goes some way towards explaining this complex situation in more detail.
Across the whole of France in 2024, the national sheep flock number 6.5 million head in 2024. This is a reduction of more than 40% compared to the situation 35 years ago. Slaughter in 2024 reached 3.5 million head in total, a fall of 16.5% compared to the figure for 2019.
The number of abattoirs in France has also contracted substantially. According to Alliance France Cuir, most local abattoirs have closed down and the majority of slaughter activity is now the preserve of a reduced group of large operators. It puts the number of these major abattoirs at around ten.
It quotes senior figures from the abattoir sector as saying those businesses now earn around one-third of the amount they earned 15 years ago for preparing a sheepskin for leather production. In addition to this lack of financial incentive, the sector is suffering from workforce difficulties. This includes recruiting people to work in abattoirs and in making sure the people who do work there have high enough skill levels to generate full value from the sheepskins that come from the animal slaughter process.
For these reasons, more sheepskins are going for export. Alliance France Cuir has said small-skin tanners in France processed 2.1 million sheepskins in 2024, but only 185,000 of them came from French farms. Skins from Spain, New Zealand, the UK and Italy made up the bulk of the rest of the raw material they used.
It says this dynamic continued in 2025 and that this is the reason why the value of raw sheepskin exports rose last year. Spain, China and Turkey were the main export destinations for the raw material.
