After three growth years, France’s apparel exports decreased by 1% in 2024, and textiles exports by 3%, while textile-apparel imports continued to diminish.

Last year, France exported €14 billion worth of apparel. Despite the decrease on an annual basis, export revenue was still much higher than the €10.7 billion recorded in 2019, before the pandemic. The European Union was still France’s largest client, with €7.6 billion (up 1%), compared to €6.5 billion for the rest of the world (down 3%).

By country, France’s top apparel clients were Italy (where exports fell 5%), Germany (up 1%), Spain (down 2%), the USA (up 1%) and China (up 1%). The tariff war recently triggered by the US administration could redraw the map of France’s relations with the last two countries. Meanwhile, exports to Poland grew by a whopping 24%, those to the UAE by 25%, to Romania by 2% and to Hungary by 14%. Excluding Italy, the only sharp decline was recorded in Singapore, where French export revenue fell by 44%.

In 2024, France exported €5.5 billion worth of textiles, a 3% downturn, though the figure was still higher than the €4.7 billion exported in 2019. Textiles export revenue was split almost equally between Europe with €2.8 billion (down 1%) and the rest of the world with €2.7 billion (down 5%).

China was France’s leading textiles client, exports to the Asian country growing 6%, ahead of Belgium and Germany, where exports were on par with the previous year. In the ranking of France’s 20 top textiles clients, only Spain (up 4%), Portugal (up 2%), the Czech Republic (up 15%), India (up 26%) and Hong Kong (up 22%) recorded increases. Exports to all other countries posted a drop, even a marked one in the case of the USA (where they fell 11%), Madagascar (down 27%) and Turkey (down 12%).

Imports decrease slows down

France’s apparel imports grew significantly in 2022 but then diminished by 8% in 2023. In 2024, they dropped by only 1%, to €23.4 billion, compared to €21.3 billion in 2019. The top four supplier countries were China (up 1%), Bangladesh (stable), Italy (up 1%) and Turkey (down 6%), followed by Vietnam (up 13%), which leapfrogged India (down 6%) in fifth place.

Behind them, Cambodia (up 16%), ahead of Tunisia (down 7%) and Morocco (up 2%). Imports from Pakistan recorded a 14% rise, while those from some other countries posted notable declines, for example from Portugal (down 11%), Myanmar (down 31%), Belgium (down 20%), Romania (down 10%) and notably Germany (down 29%).

In terms of textiles, last year France imported €7.3 billion worth of goods. This was equivalent to a 4% downturn, smaller than the 9% drop recorded in 2023, and still above the €6.4 billion imported in 2019. Imports from non-EU countries, worth €3.9 billion (up 2%), were higher than those from Europe, worth €3.4 billion (down 10%). 

China (up 7%), Italy (down 19%), Germany (down 7%), Belgium (down 1%) and Pakistan (down 5%) were the main supplier countries, followed by India (down 12%), Turkey (down 3%) and the Netherlands (down 6%). Imports from Bangladesh grew by a notable 13%, while those from Poland and Japan decreased respectively by 13% and 10%.