Being part of the Stanley Works group is killing Facom as a French manufacturer. Stanley is a publicly traded corporation. Corporations don't have national loyalties or sentimentality. They are stictly focused on maximizing profits and minimizing costs. Since French labor is expensive, they will step-by-step close every French and western European plant that they possibly can. Since Europe doesn't have country or origin requirements, they will move all production to lower cost countries. Some of Stanley's other companies like Proto have a strong "Made in USA" image that's important to their marketing. But not Facom.
They're screwed forever now...Even if they were to escape the clutches of Stanley, would they be able to reopen their French plants now that they've closed them?
All the best European tool makers are family-owned, private companies:
Hazet, Stahlwille, Elora, Wiha, Knipex are all family owned.
An exeption is Gedore, which is a corporation.
According to the Gedore website:
"...But when, precisely, may a product use the “Made in Germany” label?
There are no legal provisions defining this, but there is an essential understanding in the industry that the stages of production that determine the quality must have been carried out in Germany.
In the case of hand tools, this means that the metal machining, required to ensure the close manufacturing tolerances, and the heat treatment to guarantee optimum hardness and toughness, must have been carried out in Germany.
In the GEDORE Group, everything is produced from a single source – from the material blank to the end product."
) so i started with cheap import stuff and then replaced everything step by step with the good stuff. 
he would be proud because i take care of his tools
A Carolus?
