The past 30 years have been a sad and painful story of decline for the French textiles industry. The decision this week of DMC – one of the country’s last historic textiles group – to seek bankruptcy court protection from creditors seems to have put a final nail in the industry’s coffin.

In its heyday, DMC employed as many as 30,000 people. It has long been a symbol of a once booming sector. It was established way back in 1746 when an artist, a merchant and a banker decided to pool their respective talents together to form Dolfus Mieg & Cie (DMC) in Alsace. Its troubles started soon after the first oil shock of the early 1970s. It was forced to close 50 plants and cut 10,000 jobs.