The crisis of clothing brands such as Kookaï, Naf Naf, Pimkie or Camaïeu is due to covid and inflation, but it also responds to deeper social changes. In 2023 alone, nearly 4,000 people will be unemployed in the textile sector, according to the latest report from the Alliance du Commerce.

The crisis reflects a broader phenomenon that feeds the recurring French neurosis about eternal decline. This is what Jérôme Fourquet and Jean-Laurent Cassely call, in the essay La France sous nos yeux, “the end of the common home”