Squeezed out: last accordion maker in France to close shop after 105 years

French finance minister Valery Giscard d'Estaing (c) and French musician Yvette Horner (r) play accordion in Montmorency during the world accordion festival in 1973. Photograph: Daniel Janin/AFP/Getty Images

Maugein owner blames competition from China and Covid pandemic for firm’s demise, but former French president says there is hope

by Kim Willsher in Paris

Sat 5 Oct 2024

Its distinctive sound has provided the soundtrack for some of France’s most recognisable cultural classics, from Parisian dance halls to the film Amélie and the songs of Édith Piaf. It has even been played by a former president.

But it seems 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.

Former president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who died in 2020 and was a keen accordionist, is credited with using the instrument to revolutionise political communication.

In 1973, while minister of finance, he was filmed playing a duet with the French “Queen of the Accordion” Yvette Horner at the international accordion festival.

“If all politicians played the accordion we’d get along much better,” he told reporters.

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.

An accordion player plays traditional French songs for commuters in the Paris Métro. 
Photograph: Jacques Brinon/AP

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 Holland, 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.”

Hollande, now an MP, said liquidation did not mean the end of the company.

“It means that at some point, the Maugein brand, the Maugein business and the accordion will be able to continue thanks to new investors. They are bound to narrow down the manufacturing side but try to broaden distribution,” Hollande told Totem Radio.

“We will continue to encourage this takeover so we can have the satisfaction of hearing the Maugein accordion in many concert halls.”

He added: “Nothing is lost, everything must be done, because the announcement of Maugein’s liquidation is not just news that saddens the people of Tulle and the Corrèze. Accordions are known throughout France.”

The last Maugein accordion on order will be delivered on Monday.

First published at The Guardian Australia, October 5, 2024