Calf leather situation is ‘quite alarming’, FFTM president says
Quoting figures from Alliance France Cuir, we reported on November 2 that French leathergoods manufacturers had imported finished calf leather with a value of €116.3 million in the first eight months of 2026.
This represents, an increase of 23% year on year.
The value of calf leather that French tanneries exported over the same period is also up, but is much lower than the figure for imports. Exports of calf leather amounted to €38.7 million, up by 25% year on year.
If these figures reflect important changes in the supply of calf leather to the high-end leathergoods manufacturing sector in France, they also mirror recent comments from the president of the French Federation of Tanners (FFTM), Jean-Christophe Muller.
Mr Muller, who is a director of Alsace-based calfskin leather manufacturer Tanneries Haas, said at the Sustainable Leather Forum in Paris in September that the raw material his company has always relied on is now in short supply.
An article in the October-November issue of World Leather captures the information Mr Muller shared about this.
He said: “This year, calf slaughter for the whole of Europe will be 3.4 million head. When I started working in the industry in the 1990s, this was the volume that France produced each year on its own. This year, the figure for France will probably be 900,000 head. The situation for us is quite alarming.”
Image: A pensive Jean-Christophe Muller at the Sustainable Leather Forum in Paris in September.
Credit: Ici Au Loin.
