According to the results announced by Copacel on January 21, after a nightmarish 2023, the French paper industry returned to growth in 2024. However, it is far from having made up for the delay compared to the fall recorded in 2023. In total, France will have produced 6.53 Mt of paper and board last year, an increase of 6.3% in one year. As a reminder, between 2022 and 2023, production had fallen by 13.5%, from nearly 7.1 Mt to 6.1 Mt.
Last year, graphic papers increased by 3.5% to 788,100 t, while they had fallen by 36.2% between 2022 and 2023 (from 1.19 Mt to 760,500 t). After falling by 8.4% between 2022 and 2023, paper and board for packaging are also up by 6.5% to 4.57 Mt. In this category, corrugated case materials (CCM), which alone represent 3.86 Mt, increased by 6.1%, ahead of cardboard (+2.9% to 485,400 t). With 219,700 t, flexible packaging papers show the strongest growth (+24.3%), but they had fallen by 34.5% between 2022 and 2023. As for hygiene papers, they recorded an increase of 5.5% to 826,700 t while they had fallen by 7.5% in 2023 to settle at 783,800 t.
With 1.41 Mt, pulp production is up by 12% (-18.9% between 2022 and 2023). Finally, consumption of paper and board for recycling is up by 6.2% to more than 5 Mt (- 5,3 % and 4.7 Mt in 2023).
V. L.
