Glass half full for Duralex after public fundraiser

Drop a Duralex glass and it will most likely bounce, not break.

- Kim Willsher

The French company itself has tumbled several times in the past two decades and always bounced back, but never quite as spectacularly as when, last month, it asked the public for money.

An appeal for €5m ($5.75m) of emergency funding to secure the immediate future of the glassworks took just five hours and 40 minutes to reach its target. Within 48 hours, the total amount pledged had topped €19m.

François Marciano, 59, the director general of Duralex, said the response had astonished everyone at the company. "We thought it would take five or six weeks to raise the €5m. When it reached nearly €20m we had to say stop. Enough," he said.

As a staff cooperative, €5m is the maximum Duralex can accept in public investment under financial rules.

Mention Duralex to any French person and they will be transported back to childhood and a school canteen.

The brand evokes a mix of nostalgia and pride and is a symbol of French patriotism and industrial savoir faire.

"The French people want to save us. They are fed up with factories closing and the country's industries declining," Marciano said.

At the factory in La Chapelle-SaintMesmin on the banks of the Loire, just outside Orléans, Marciano says he and his colleagues are "floating on a cloud" after the appeal.

Eighteen months ago, Marciano oversaw a staff buyout of the company, which had been placed in receivership for the fourth time in 20 years. Today, 180 of the 243 employees are "associates" in the company.