While the world holds its breath the fate of the Middle East This week, France has been hit by a very different story: a scandal over a rubber-chewing giraffe.
Sophie la Girafe, the country’s national toy, has long been a symbol of craftsmanship “made in France”, sold as gifts for babies across the country. But this week, it was revealed the beloved toy has been secretly manufactured in China for the past decade.
Vulli, the company behind the toy, quietly began moving production to China since 2013, according to an investigation by the French channel Mediapart. By 2019, manufacturing in France had effectively ceased – a factory in Rumilly, a small town in the French Alps, was only operating to stock toys that were already made in China.
Current and former employees told Mediapart they did not see anyone working in the factory and the production line would only come up when customers or journalists came to visit.
“We would put four or five people in the workshop, the raw materials had expired. Everything was fake,” said one manager.
French authorities launched an investigation into the company – including allegations of deceptive commercial practices – after an audit in 2025 found the brand was still selling toys with the “made in France” label, according to the French outlet.
Meanwhile, the company quietly changed the label on its French packaging to read “born in Paris” – a subtle claim that de-emphasizes where the toy is produced. Still in China, the old story continued: on Tmall, a China’s leading e-commerce platformthe brand’s supermarket still listed France as the country of production.
