The Guardian newspaper wrote about The
Last Accordion Maker in France closing. It appears that the factory has now closed for good.
Here is Part of the Guardian article about the manufacturer.
The traditional French-made accordéon à bretelles (strap accordion) has been squeezed out of existence after Maugein, the country’s last manufacturer, was forced
into liquidation after 105 years of making the instrument, known as the “poor person’s piano”.
“We’re closing,” said Richard Brandao, 57, who took over the struggling company 11 years ago, and who blames competition from China and the disruption of the Covid pandemic for the firm’s demise.
“Since Covid, it’s all
over. We were going up the slope until 2019, but Covid took us down,” he added.
Maugein, the last artisanal French accordion maker in a market dominated by Chinese manufacturers, still had 10 employees, the oldest of whom started out as an apprentice 39 years ago.
Founded in 1919 by Jean Maugein, who made the
instruments in a former first world war munitions factory, the company originally employed 290 people in the town of Tulle in the Corrèze in central France. Business boomed after the second world war when the arrival in France of jazz and swing boosted sales, but the company began to decline in the 1970s.
Since the 1990s, Maugein has been the only accordion maker in France to produce instruments from
scratch and to order, a process that takes 110 hours and up to 6,000 parts, to create 70-80 accordions each month. By 2012, the workforce had been reduced to 21 people, but output remained at up to 600 instruments a year.
A year later, faced with dwindling orders caused by competition from Chinese competitors producing cheaper models, Maugein tried to diversify by producing harmonicas and electric
accordions.
Despite a surge in sales sparked by the success of an album by the singer and accordionist Claudio Capéo, the company faced closure a decade ago. It was saved with an injection of money including €600,000 (£500,000) from the former Arsenal and French international defender Laurent Koscielny, who was born in Tulle.
The announcement last week that the company had been placed into liquidation by the local financial court came just six months after former president François Hollande, a resident of Tulle, and culture minister Rachida Dati inaugurated a €9m Accordion City museum and cultural space in the town.
“Our only hope was to break into the Chinese market, where growth and interest in
accordions is strongest, but we didn’t succeed,” Brandao told La Montagne newspaper.
“And this despite our participation in the China International Musical Instrument Show, the world’s biggest event in the sector.”
Brandao told the Guardian: “The company has been placed into liquidation and is therefore
closed. The employees will be made redundant next week.”
He added: “A takeover project is being considered by 4 employees. It’s still too early to say, but we should know more within the next month. The other employees are looking for new jobs. That’s all the news from Maison
Maugein.”
