The revival of the French watchmaking industry

Based on exceptional craftsmanship, the French watchmaking industry was one of the world’s leading pioneers in the art of timekeeping. Yet this historic prestige nearly fell into oblivion. The sector’s manufacturing base was decimated by a series of crises, from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes – which forced Protestant watchmakers into exile in Switzerland – to the wave of deindustrialisation in the 1970s, exacerbated by the advent of quartz watches. The French watchmaking industry then gradually transformed into an assembly-based sector, dependent on foreign suppliers. However, in recent years, an unexpected revival has begun. Faced with a new crisis – that of Covid-19 – the sector has decided to take its destiny back into its own hands. It is this entrepreneurial drive, combined with an unprecedented application of academic models of innovation management, that explains the origins of the reindustrialisation of the French watchmaking industry.