Their production sites are located in Brittany and Sarthe: these companies which manufacture tear gas grenades for maintaining order
For several years, two French companies have been signing contracts worth several million euros with the State to equip law enforcement. Production sites that have existed for several decades.
More than 19,000 tear gas grenades were reportedly used in Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux during the day of October 17, marked by violence and looting on the sidelines of the demonstrations. This is the count, still provisional at the time, carried out by Le Monde shortly after this dark day. Tear gas grenades? A law enforcement equipment regularly used during demonstrations and developed in France more than a century ago, as social science researcher Anna Feigenbaum recalls in her Little History of Tear Gas. Even today, two French companies located in Brittany and Sarthe are among the main suppliers to law enforcement: Nobel Sport and Alsetex.
During the last public contract award in 2023, these two companies signed contracts worth several million euros. Eight batches of equipment orders were proposed for tender, initially for an amount estimated at 38 million euros but ultimately totaling more than 78 million, according to the notice available online on the Official Bulletin of Public Procurement Announcements (BOAMP).
The Sarthe company Alsetex responded to six lots for a total of around 21 million euros. The State has notably granted more than 11 million euros for lot 5, “56 millimeter grenade cartridges with sound and tear gas effects at a range of 80 meters”. For its part, Nobel Sport, whose main production site is located in Brittany, won lot 1, “supply of grenades for maintaining order and means of delay propulsion and igniter caps”, for an amount of nearly 40 million euros (excluding taxes). The French company also obtained part of lots 3 and 8.
For several years, these two industrialists have shared the cake. Already in 2018, they responded to a similar call for tenders but it was for 17.5 million euros according to BOAMP. Nobel Sport had recovered 68% of the value of this market and Alsetex 30%.
From producing powder for the royal navy to maintaining order and hunting
The know-how of the two companies is historic. Nobel Sport's main production site, in Finistère, has existed since the end of the 17th century. At the beginning, the Pont-de-Buis factory produced black powder for the Royal Navy. After the two world wars, the National Company of Powders and Explosives which operated it then began to focus its production on hunting activities before selling this branch to Nobel Sport in 2000. Today, Nobel Sport manufactures powder there for hunting rifle ammunition and law enforcement equipment such as defense bullet launchers (LBD) or tear gas grenades.
As for the Alsetex company, founded in 1920 under the name of the Société Alsacienne d'Explosives, it moved its factory to Sarthe shortly before the Second World War, in 1935. After manufacturing ammunition for the French army, it diversified into law enforcement products.
Machine-translated from French
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