Bottles of Cognac are stored in the Hennessy factory in Cognac
Around 500 employees at Hennessy, the cognac maker owned by French luxury giant LVMH, are on strike Tuesday, with workers accusing the company of considering moving bottling to China to avoid Beijing's surcharges on European cognac.
“The comrades of the Cognac Houses have been informed of a possible bottling project in China. So obviously here, it has a very significant impact,” Michaël Lablanche, secretary general of the Departmental Union of Cognac, told Reuters. CGT of Charente.
For the moment the project only concerns the Hennessy house, he clarified, while adding that “it will necessarily concern all the houses and in terms of employment it would be a disaster for the sector”.
About 500 employees joined the strike, or half of the group's employees, he said.
The cognac sector has been particularly affected by the trade dispute between Europe and China, with Beijing having begun to impose customs duties on imports of wine spirits from the European Union at the beginning of October, very popular on the Chinese market, particularly cognac.
Hennessy did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
(Written by Mandiá, with Alban Kacher, edited by Kate Entringer and Augustin Turpin)
