Mines, marble, stones and quarries. A specialist world far removed from realities of everyday life? Hardly. As the French company Rocamat has recently demonstrated in relation the on-going saga of the south portico of the Great Court of the British Museum - one of the nation’s most important Grade 1 listed buildings. Of sufficient public interest, n’est ce pas, for The Times to come up with the rather chauvinistic headline ‘British Museum restored with inferior French stone’, and in so doing bringing to the fore those old, on going prejudices between the English and French.

"In any event, its not even true that our Anstrude Roche Claire is inferior to Portland stone, which is clearly the sous-entendu of all of these articles and speculation in the press", retorts Hugues Duflot, export project manager for the Ile-Saint-Denis based company. Easton Masonry informed us last July that they were using our limestone on their contract at the British Museum. It has been used in both France and Europe for many years. Both its quality and technical characteristics are comparable to Portland – and I really can’t see what all the fuss is about."

Protest as he might, Sir Jocelyn Stevens, chairman of English heritage has demanded an inquiry into the apparent blunder. "It’s just unacceptable", he said. "This is a Grade 1 building, probably one of the most famous in England. The British Museum for God’s sake. You’d think that they would be careful to make sure the quality was right."

Rocamat’s Anstrude Roche Claire was put up by Easton Masonry – not Portland stone which matches the original - but the Easton has been reluctant to comment on the affair, aware that demolishing the work on the south portico would cost in the region of £3.5 million.

No France-bashing, however, can detract from the fact that Rocamat is the world’s leading limestone producer. With a workforce of just over 750, the company’s turnover is some 400 million francs a year, over two thirds of which is achieved in France, the remaining 30% earmarked for export. From Rocamat’s 35 quarries over 60,000 m3 production blocks are produced per year, their 13 factories and 4 additional workshops now busier than ever before, achieving a yearly weighted production of 650,000 m2. So much for the facts and figures – but Rocamat’s strength, Duflot claims, is the company’s capacity to adapt.

"While we specialise in large scale projects by virtue of our continuous modernised industrial base and a rigorous project management, we have still managed to preserve our old craftsmanship in both traditional stonemasonry and marble work. We like to feel that despite our size we are able to adapt to all sizes of projects. Our trump cards are because we are able to fully control the production process from quarrying right through to the shipping out of our natural materials."

This is more than mere marketing hype on the part of Duflot. For the company has contributed to many of the great architectural achievements of our time: the Musée d’Orsay, the Grande Louvre in Paris, the construction of the stone support to the four bases of the Eiffel Tower, a series of palaces in the Middle East and Japan – and dozens of well-known buildings in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, Seattle and Minneapolis in the United States. Sales are organised through no less than 20 marketing offices scattered around both France and the Benelux countries. The export department is based entirely at the company’s head offices in Paris, although it opened an office in Japan back in the early 1990s. And it is from the French capital that Rocamat products part far and wide – to South East Asia, Oceania, the Middle East, Africa and South America.

Sales in respect of the Great Britain are handled exclusively from Paris and come entirely within Duflot’s sphere of influence. Not just the UK, in fact, but Africa and the Middle East too – quite a wide remit – as the energetic Frenchman is the first to admit. Three people work full time in respect of UK sales – assisted by an estimating office and project management bureau. Products are sold in a variety of forms: blocks, slabs, sawn 6 sides – in addition to vertical cladding, flooring and carved pieces. Rocamat changed tack slightly 5 years ago when it decided to supply directly to each and every part of the British Isles, with neither agent nor representative based in the UK. Nor do they install any stones themselves.

In 1988 Rocamat began a new project – an agency and contracting company named Rocamat Ltd, working on a share basis with C.W.O. However this ceased functioning in 1995. Ever since the sixties C.W.O. was both client and company representative – the company contributing greatly to the development and use of French limestone in the UK. Which is why they remain one of Rocamat’s major clients. That said sales are now being redeveloped in 3 new directions: stone contractors in finished product form; distributors and stockists in tiles or semi finished products – and stone masons in blocks or sawn 6 sided forms. In fact the company is going out of its way to promote its materials and to insist that the architects specify them most precisely. A tactic, needless to say, which would have prevented the current fiasco in respect of the British Museum. It was in this manner that contracts were won in respect of 5-7 Carlton Gardens (exterior cladding), Albert Bridge House (exterior cladding), Watling House (exterior cladding), Governor’s House (interior lobby), Globe House (interior lobby and atrium), a newly constructed Tesco’s, Hillswood Business Park (exterior cladding) – and many more besides.

"Business is booming in the UK", Duflot crows, "and it is a market in which we continue to see great potential".

It was projects such as these that have allowed the company to successfully build a new network of relationships with those who might have had reason to view Rocamat as a potential competitor in the past. "Combining their contracting expertise within the UK, and our strength in respect of supply, provides much more satisfactory results that our simply going on our own sweet way."

This new strategy, however, has meant new competition – notably from other European suppliers. Nevertheless, Rocamat’s network of clients has increased steadily during the course of the last few years, with forthcoming projects promising good work for the coming months, the company confidently forecasting steady demand within the UK market for a minimum of two years.

Sales of blocks also remain an important part of Rocamat’s sales in the UK – an area that continues to develop the reputation of its products. And whilst France bashing might help to sell newspapers, Duflot protests, one should not be lulled into thinking that material coming from the other side of the Channel is anything new. On the contrary, several colleges at both Oxford and Cambridge bear Rocamat material – and there are countless Cathedrals – Canterbury, Westminster and Chichester, to name but a few – where French material has been used – in trade that can be traced right back to the middle ages. "The list of projects we have indirectly through English stone masons is far wider that one might guess", Duflot affirms with a hint of mystery.

So successful, though, that there have been rumours that the company might be up for sale. Rumours with Duflot is happy to dismiss with a large Gallic shrug of the shoulders. "I have been working with Rocamat for 13 years", he says philosophically, "and I have listened to such rumours for as long as I can remember. I really take no notice of the whispering system at all."

And in a last sounding of the trumpets for his company Duflot concludes:

"Our experience is to supply our own range of limestone and marbles. It is our tradition that has been responsible for forging our reputation. But tradition and reliability ought not to imply immobility. On the contrary, we are a company continuing to go places. We have every intention of retaining our position of leadership and forging ahead still further."

Leader-writers and museums thus please note. You have been warned. The French are here to stay. Vive l’Europe!

Rocamat

58 quai de la Marine

93450 L’Ile-Saint-Denis

France

Tel: + 33 1 49 33 26 00/ 49 33 26 33

Fax: + 33 1 48 09 96 04