Lyon - French luxury footwear brand Clergerie, which was liquidated at the beginning of April, was finally taken over by Spanish company Petrel 92 SL. However, the fate of its 50 or so employees remains uncertain to their great dismay, a representative of the employees told AFP on Wednesday.
The buyer came forward shortly after the liquidation of the emblematic French brand, which was ordered on April 8 by the commercial court of Romans-sur-Isère (Drôme). According to an order dated April 22, which AFP consulted, confirming information from Dauphiné Libéré, the buyer must keep “all of the employees' employment contracts”.
However, the majority of the employees' jobs will ultimately not be kept. This was indicated to them later in a video conference by Laurent Azoulai, counsel to Titan Industries chief executive officer, Joe Ouaknine, the previous buyer of Clergerie, according to Valérie Treffé-Chavant, an employee of the footwear brand and CFE-CGC delegate, who was present at the meeting.
A ‘Kafkaesque situation’ for employees
The counsel explained that the commercial court had made a “poor transcription” of the takeover offer. The buyer was planning to keep only 14 jobs, the delegate told AFP.
This is a “Kafkaesque situation” for the employees, most of whom are in Romans-sur-Isère, where the last factory has closed. They have become “ghosts, because we don't have an employment contract, we don't know if we're being made redundant or not, we don't have any pay”, she lamented.
Azoulai and the commercial court did not respond to AFP's requests immediately.
Clergerie, which exported its shoes as far as Hollywood during its golden age, dressed the feet of Lauren Bacall and Madonna. The group was one of the last to manufacture leather shoes in France in its factory, along with Paraboot, J.M. Weston and Heschung.
The company, founded in 1981, had been in difficulty for years. It was placed in receivership in 2023 before being taken over by the Californian company Titan Footwear, at the cost of relocating part of the production and cutting jobs.
The brand's three companies, JHJ, SSB and Tiger Mode, were again placed in compulsory liquidation after the court rejected the only takeover offer by a shareholder in April.
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