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Defense and management organization

Camembert de Normandie: Conseil d'État rulings strengthen PDO protection [ODG].

Through three rulings handed down in the middle of summer, the Conseil d'État has confirmed the validity of the notice to operators issued by the Direction Générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des Fraudes (DGCCRF) against the mention "Fabriqué en Normandie" present on products not complying with the specifications of the "Camembert de Normandie" protected designation of origin.

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Defense and management organization

Camembert de Normandie ©Association de Gestion des ODG Laitiers Normands

Published in the latter's Official Bulletin on July 9, 2020, this notice to operators considered that the existence of Camembert labels with the words "fabriqué en Normandie" ("made in Normandy") undermined the protection of the PDO-registered name "Camembert de Normandie". On July 22, 2022, the Conseil d'Etat rejected the three appeals for annulment lodged by the Syndicat Normand des Fabricants de Camembert -SNFC- (no. 447234), Lactalis (no. 448 526) and Coopérative Isigny Sainte Mère (no. 452140). These decisions follow on from the order of December 24, 2020 (n°447234) rejecting the interim injunction issued by the Conseil d'Etat's juge des référés for lack of serious doubt as to the legality of the notice to operators.

Requests dismissed

As the pleas raised by the three requests are more or less similar, so is the architecture of the Conseil d'État's decisions.

The applicants were able to argue that the contested notice would be illegal in that it states that the mention "fabriqué en Normandie" associated with the name "camembert" would be contrary to Article 13 of EU Regulation no. 1151/2012 on designations of origin. This argument was rejected by the Conseil d'État. The highest administrative court recalled the regulations and broad protection enjoyed by PDOs (Article 13 of Regulation (EU) 1151/2012 and related case law). It delimits the field of possibilities for operators in relation to this composite geographical denomination. Indeed, the PDO "Camembert de Normandie" combines on the one hand the generic term "camembert", whose use is free, and a geographical name "Normandie", whose use is reserved for cheeses complying with the specifications of this PDO.

The other arguments raised by the applicants met with a similar fate, with the Conseil d'État finding that there was no acquired right for the applicants to maintain the "made in Normandy" designation, and that "the principle of equality between operators was not undermined".

This case gave rise to interministerial coordination between the DGCCRF, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty and the INAO, both for the advice to operators and for the litigation.