The well-known French home-appliance brand Brandt is disappearing after being placed into court-ordered liquidation on Thursday, 11 December. France’s industrial sector—already in poor shape despite President Emmanuel Macron’s push for reindustrialisation—takes another heavy blow. But it is above all Brandt’s owner, the Algerian private conglomerate Cevital, that is hit hardest.
The Rebrab family (Issad, Malik, Lynda, Omar, Salim and Yassine), mired in severe financial troubles linked to corruption cases, could hardly have afforded another setback.
The Nanterre Economic Activities Court on Thursday brought an end to a long decline. The Cevital subsidiary had secured court protection in early October, after two consecutive years of hardship marked by shrinking sales in France, including a 3.9% drop in 2024.
That process was supposed to lead to takeover bids to safeguard jobs, as well as preserve Brandt’s “industrial know-how” and its “French footprint”. Brandt was presented as the last major manufacturer of large household appliances in France. A cooperative buyout plan (Scop), backed by the government, had been floated—only to fizzle out.
The bottom line: just over two months after entering judicial reorganisation, the group has now been formally liquidated, leaving 700 employees out of work. “It’s terrible news, a shock, a very hard blow to French industry,” and a “trauma” for staff, said François Bonneau, president of the Centre-Val de Loire region.
The announcement sent ripples all the way to the French government, with two ministers reacting swiftly: Roland Lescure, responsible for the economy, and Sébastien Martin, in charge of industry. They lamented the collapse of a “French flagship”. “Every factory closure is heartbreaking for employees, families and everyone who kept an industrial expertise alive,” the two ministers said, as quoted by Le Figaro.
Beyond Brandt, the group controls the brands De Dietrich, Sauter and Vedette. Taken over in 2014 by Algeria’s private heavyweight Cevital, the appliance giant had regained momentum and was operating two production sites in France—one in Orléans and the other in Vendôme. Around 50,000 cooking appliances were produced annually at these plants.
In Algeria, the brand’s products are designed in a vast 95,000-square-metre industrial park in Sétif, following a massive investment of $250 million. The Sétif plant employs 4,000 people and produces 8 million devices each year (televisions, refrigerators, air conditioners, cookers and washing machines), with a local integration rate of 70% to 80%.
In France, Brandt’s revenue stood at €260 million this year—insufficient to pull the brand out of its slump. For the Rebrab family, it is another setback, after the prison sentence and business ban handed down to the patriarch, Issad, in 2019, followed by the eldest son, Omar, in July 2025.
What's happening in Tunisia?
Subscribe to our Youtube channel for updates.
