Duralex’s CEO, François Marciano, 59, with a massive and easy-going physique, has a strange habit. In the middle of a discussion, he throws his glass on the ground. Before letting out, in a great burst of laughter: “This is to prove to you that it is unbreakable.” The glass, a Duralex of course, remains intact. But it is the entire company that almost ended up in pieces. It took a sacred union between workers and management, local authorities of opposing political persuasions, the State and banks to save in extremis this French industrial flagship employing two hundred and twenty-eight employees and placed in receivership at the end of April.
Together, they imagined its transformation into a worker production cooperative (SCOP); the employees have been, since 1is August, the majority shareholders of their company. On September 2, it was in their name that François Marciano, former and new director, presented his project for the brand, appearing in particular alongside Guillaume Gibault, boss of Le Slip français, during an operation to promote “made in France”.
Inventor of tempered glass, obtained by brutal hot-cold applied to the paste, Saint-Gobain registered the name Duralex in 1945, inspired by the Latin motto Dura lex, sed lex (“the law is harsh, but it is the law”), to already boast the solidity of its tableware. Glasses, cups and plates are produced in a glassworks located in La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, in the suburbs of Orléans (Loiret). The success is dazzling: the Gigogne cup (1946) then the Picardie (1954)
are invited onto tables and invading canteens. Between breaded fish and mash, generations of schoolchildren are launching “How old are you?” by peering into the bottom of their glass, rejuvenating or aging according to the number written on it. In reality, the number of the mold from which each glass comes.
Also read our 2020 archive | One day, an object made in France (5/10): Duralex glass
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The brand became iconic. The glasses were exported all over the world. Even today, foreign sales represent more than 80% of turnover. But, since the 1990s, Chinese competition and a succession of buyers with risky, even fraudulent, management practices – Sinan Solmaz, the short-lived owner (2005-2008), was convicted of misuse of corporate assets and bankruptcy by embezzlement or concealment for having left with the cash – regularly threatened the factory. The most recent (since 2021), La Maison française du verre, which also owns Pyrex, justified having to throw in the towel by arguing soaring energy prices.
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