Laurent Boillot first announced it to the company's social partners, who met informally this Monday morning, November 25. Then the CEO of the cognac house confirmed it to the press in the middle of the afternoon. Hennessy, the H of French luxury giant LVMH, is suspending its experimental project to export cognac in bulk to China and bottling it with a local subcontractor.
The initiative, described as a “test”, was supposed to circumvent the surcharges imposed by Beijing on European brandies (1) since October 11, 2024. Its presentation to the company's employees provoked a massive strike last week. Between 500 and 600 employees denounced an “aberrant and dangerous” project, ensuring that the remedy envisaged was worse than the disease. Management, for its part, paid lip service to the upcoming launch of a “study” but refuted any idea of relocation.
As a “last resort”
This Monday, November 25, Hennessy's management therefore reversed course, specifying in a press release that it was following “the evolution of the political and diplomatic situation very closely.” The decision to suspend the “test project” comes a week after Emmanuel Macron’s declarations on November 19, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Brazil.
That evening – at a time when discontent among the merchant's employees was growing in Cognac – the President of the Republic declared that he wanted to “find a favorable outcome” to the overtaxation of cognac in China with his counterpart Xi Jinping. Emmanuel Macron added that Prime Minister Michel Barnier was to make a special trip to China “in the first quarter of next year”.
“We were at an impasse. There, there is a glow,” commented Laurent Boillot on Monday, November 25. The CEO of the house added that the “test project” had been imagined as a “last resort”, at the end of possible unsuccessful diplomatic negotiations. “I want to set the record straight and present things in the right order. A study takes time and mobilizes a lot of energy. Nothing was decided, nothing was launched,” he insisted.
The Thursday demonstration maintained
The company's unions took note with relief, considering that “the strong social mobilization last week had had its impact”. Matthieu Devers, CGT delegate and secretary of the Social and Economic Council (CSE of the trader), declared: “The house is suspending its project, but is not burying it. We are both relieved and mixed. We remain mobilized. »
Also, the inter-professional demonstration planned for Thursday, November 28 in town and in particular in front of the National Inter-professional Cognac Bureau (BNIC) is maintained. The CGT, FO, CFDT and CFTC call on all their members to take to the streets to demand that bottling in the cognac production area be included in the specifications of the Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC). ).
(1) Indeed, only containers of less than 200 liters are, for the moment, affected by the deposit of a heavy deposit or the presentation of bank guarantee letters. Hennessy is subject to a 39% surcharge.
