24 | Country Focus: France
SUMMARY
■ Housing starts have risen this year ■ RE2020 regulations have boosted demand for wood products
■ Lumber imports are down on last year
■ Exports picked up in the second half of 2024
PERSPECTIVES POSITIVE
The French timber sector enjoyed an upward trajectory through 2024 – and 2025 looks like delivering further improvement. Thibaud Le Moign of FrenchTimber reports
The French lumber market has been doing rather well this last year. After rising concerns about sluggish consumption on the softwood market at the beginning of 2024, things started to pick up after the first quarter. A key factor was housing starts, which showed a steady increase for the rest of the year.
Other 34%
Oak 27%
Chestnut 12%
Poplar 11%
Beech 16%
Reports state a rise in the use of wood products in the construction and joinery industry partly thanks to the RE2020 regulations. This environment regulation is aimed at driving use of bio- based construction products and is very beneficial to sales of timber products such as wooden doors and windows and cladding because of their low carbon footprint and good thermal insulation characteristics.
Above: Hardwood lumber production per species
TTJ | July/August 2025 |
www.ttjonline.com
The pallet and packaging sector experienced rather slow sales in the first semester, but they too picked up very well for the second half of the year. Similar trends were seen in French hardwood consumption, with products destined for the construction and refurbishment sectors growing as the year went on. Sales of stairs, doors, windows, furniture components and glue laminated panel products all benefited.
Meanwhile, many sawmills are reporting a growing interest in second transformation products, wood-based building materials and engineered wood products such as glulam, multi-layer panels and CLT.
On the other hand, the flooring industry remained very slow for most of the year. During this period, the volume of imported lumber was generally lower than the previous year, with softwood imports dropping by 15%. The value of imported beech lumber decreased 6% and oak lumber plunged by 21%.
TIMBER HARVEST AND LUMBER PRODUCTION
The latest data on timber harvested in France is from 2023, when there was a decrease on the record total seen in 2022. The overall volume was around 39.1 million m3 from the all-time high 39.8 million m3 previous year. The breakdown is as follows:
, down of the
• Sawlogs: 18.5 million m3 • Industrial wood: 10.2 million m3 • Energy wood 10.3 million m3
Regarding logs destined for the sawmilling industry, softwood species represented 74% of the total volume (13.7 million m3
comprised 26% of the total at 4.8 million m3
Production of softwood sawlogs is dominated by spruce (3.9 million m3 (3 million m3 million m3
) and beech (850,000m3
) followed by maritime pine (2.8 ) and Douglas fir (2.7 million m3
) and fir ).
For hardwoods, oak is the dominant species (2.1 million m3 million m3
) followed by poplar (1.2 ).
The most productive region in terms of timber production is the south-west thanks
). Hardwood .
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