Industry Personality

Didier Vagnaux, 33 years serving hemp at Interval

President of the Interval group since 1993, on the verge of retirement, Didier Vagnaux has just handed over to Pierre-Étienne Finot. Very involved in hemp, he was also a board member at FNPC and InterChanvre. « The development of the hemp sector within the Interval group is not the work of one man alone, but the result of the collective commitment of the board of directors and the investment of the director, Philippe Guichard », Didier Vagnaux is keen to point out. At the head of this collective, he participated in the arrival of hemp at Interval, « a response to changes in the CAP », in the creation of the Eurochanvre subsidiary in 1994 and the defibering plant. « We had to overcome many difficulties both in harvesting and defibering. » In 2001, Interval created AFT Plasturgie with La Chanvrière de l'Aube to integrate plant fibers into the plastics industry. Following La Chanvrière's withdrawal, Interval continued alone and then sealed a partnership with automotive supplier Faurecia to create APM in 2015. « Over time, outlets have gained in technicality, moving from luxury papermaking to automotive plastics and cottonized textile hemp for fiber, from mulching and bedding to hempcrete for hemp hurd. Hempseed, initially intended for bird feeding and fishing, is now destined for human consumption. Today, 1,500 ha of hemp are produced by approximately 120 growers. While profitability and outlets are present, the expansion of acreage comes up against labor constraints on increasingly large farms seeking to simplify their organization. »

All Hemp Congress 2026

This newsletter reflects on the 3^rd All Hemp Congress, a highlight of the industrial hemp sector organized every three years by InterChanvre. On January 12 and 13, this congress developed all the environmental assets of hemp and their valorization for the benefit of producers. This is why the Académie du Climat, an emblematic venue for environmental impacts, hosted this very beautiful event within its walls.

Looking back at the highlights of these two days.

A 2026 Congress under the sign of innovation

● Hemp was present in all its forms during this congress, at the heart of presentations of course with speakers never seen at All Hemp such as Emmanuelle Cosse (President of Union Sociale pour l'Habitat), Fanny Foreau (Head of Purchasing and Partnerships for Biobased Materials at Bouygues Construction), Jacques Baudrier (Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of housing and ecological transition of buildings), but not only. A total of 60 French and foreign speakers took turns at the microphone.

● The Chanvr'Art exhibition sublimated hemp in 2D or 3D through remarkable works by artists, some of whom exhibited at the Grand Palais: Nicolas Pinon, independent lacquer decorator (« Entropie » made from hemp fibers and dust), Niki Stylianou, sculptor, painter and designer (« Arbre de Lumière » and « Forêt de chrysalide » made from hemp tow), Yannick Masson, scenographer artist (work based on geotextile), Jean-Marie Pierret, painter (painting on geotextile), Paul Huchede & Inès Adam, Atelier DAMA (« Étreinte », « Aurore » and « Sémaphore » made from hemp fibers) and the École nationale supérieure de création industrielle (model made from hemp fibers). Some of the works are also purchased by the Mobilier National.

● A magnificent video with original music was specially created for the Congress and the sector stakeholders.

Watch the Congress video

● The new hemp cultivation guide, the hemp sector lexicon as well as the summary of the recently finalized LCA of French cottonized hemp were given to participants.

Find publications on the InterChanvre website

● During the « Construction » workshop, construction specialists were able to visit hempcrete buildings with references provided by the City of Paris.

● A workshop was also dedicated to French and international territorial dynamics around hemp with testimonies from Alsace, Charente-Maritime, Normandy, Landes, but also from South Africa, Quebec and Germany.

● The Congress photos are accessible on the InterChanvre website in your participant space.

Access Congress photos

Acreage and markets in full expansion

« The sector's dynamics are excellent with French hemp acreage tripled over the past ten years to reach 24,600 ha, noted Franck Barbier, president of InterChanvre at the opening of the 3^rd All Hemp Congress of the sector. Our objective is to double the acreage in the next five years, despite a complicated international context. » France is the 2^nd largest producer in the world while global acreage has decreased in recent years after the CBD market bubble. Several outlets are growing strongly in France: human food, which has gone from 15% of seeds produced to 42% in 8 years, hempcrete construction with a 16% annual increase in volumes. Regarding fibers, the textile outlet is growing from 10% of fibers produced to 14%, as is geotextile which reaches 4%. Hemp insulation volumes are stable and biobased insulation represents 11% of the insulation market share in France. To remove any ambiguity, since January 2024, InterChanvre has excluded flowers and leaves (molecule market) from the scope of the industrial hemp interprofession.

Outlets

A fully valorized plant

« The sector's objective is to ensure optimal valorization of each component of the plant to guarantee the best possible remuneration for farmers, noted Philippe Guichard, president of the Union des Transformateurs de Chanvre (UTC). In 30 years of existence, we have created the « French Hempseed » label, developed the use of fibers in plastics, valorized dust in methanization, and the Chaber project, currently underway, will allow the valorization of gray hemp hurd. Regarding hempseed, the sector is orienting its strategy toward artisanal bakery, focusing on pastries, by becoming a provider of solutions and recipes for artisans. » It is in this context that the Food workshop on the 2^nd day of the Congress took place at the Syndicat des Boulangers du Grand Paris with Stéphane Treuiller, artisan baker, 2011 French Baking Champion. « The sector is also deploying constant efforts to have hemp's environmental virtues recognized. But despite its exemplary character, approaches to the administration and Inrae to obtain a Pesticide Savings Certificate (CEPP) run up against a form of bureaucratic inertia. »

Construction

What levers to develop sustainable construction?

An integrated sector

« The hemp construction sector is based on complete vertical integration, from raw material producers to marketers: that's its signature, recalls Nathalie Fichaux, director of InterChanvre. This makes it possible to respond to requests from major contractors. An example: Grand Paris Aménagement projects the construction of one million square meters of floor space by 2030. The sector is able to calculate the agricultural hemp area needed and plan its cultivation. It is this direct correlation between construction needs and agricultural production that supports the sector's current growth. »

Structuring research programs

« Three major research programs are currently being deployed », specifies Guillaume Delannoy, vice-president of Construire en Chanvre and industrial development and study manager at FRD-Codem. The NeccITE program focuses on External Thermal Insulation (ETI), a method currently outside the normative framework of professional rules, although exemplary achievements already exist. Humidity and driving rain resistance tests are underway in order to develop practical guides to support project owners and, ultimately, integrate prefabricated ETI into the sector's regulatory corpus. The Pythagore program focuses on the particular hygrothermal regulation of hempcrete to correct current calculation methods that do not reflect its real performance, both technically and economically. Pythagore's ambition is to convert this scientific knowledge into data for design offices and use it for influence work so that this particularity is taken into account in regulatory calculations. Finally, the Chabler project which aims to valorize gray hemp hurd in the construction sector (see Newsletter N°23), wishes to open up internationally to collect initial characterization elements.

Essential involvement of local elected officials

After working for 10 years to create the first eco-district in hempcrete, testing the first prefabricated hempcrete public buildings (see Newsletter N°24), Jean-Michel Morer, mayor of Trilport (Seine-et-Marne), opens the doors of his achievements to other mayors so that they can learn from them. « The ambition is now to change scale thanks to Wall'up's prefabricated hempcrete to scale up the hemp construction sector, notes Jean-Michel Morer. Hemp should not be approached in a segmented way, but as an asset for land planning, reconciling sovereignty, environment and economy. The cultural battle with elected officials and architects has been largely won. It is now necessary to better remunerate farmers for the positive environmental externalities generated in order to make the economic model sustainable and make them lasting allies of the environmental transition. »

Plastics Industry

Hemp integrated into prestige vehicles 

« The use of hemp in the automotive industry is a concrete reality », recalls Karim Belouli, director of Eco-Technilin, a company that produces seven million automotive parts each year, equipping fifty-four vehicle models currently circulating in Europe. « Hemp is integrated into varied and prestigious models, including Opel Insignia, Hyundai i30, Ford Kuga, Ford Transit Connect, Volvo XC40, Volkswagen Golf, Renault Mégane E-Tech as well as vehicles from the brands Ligier, Aixam, Jeep, McLaren. »

Textile

The LCA of French cottonized hemp finalized 

In the same way as the hemp cultivation guide or the PES (payment for environmental services), it is important for InterChanvre to provide structuring tools to sector stakeholders. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of cottonized hemp carried out by Evea with InterChanvre is one (see Newsletter N°25). It makes it possible to provide the first environmental data on French industrial hemp production in an international reference database (Ecoinvent). Thus, French cottonized hemp has a carbon footprint of 1.15 kg eqCO₂/kg of material, three times less than polyester (excluding end of life) and twice less than cotton or viscose. Representative of more than 90% of French hemp production, this LCA replaces previous data based on Indian hemp.

Find LCA details

Fiber quality, a paramount issue

« There are no poor quality fibers, notes Estelle Delangle, director of the Pôle européen du chanvre. There just needs to be a match between the fiber typology and its final use, i.e., putting the right fiber in the right place. For this, the ICHAT project currently underway aims to analyze the best technologies for valorizing textile hemp fiber (short, semi-long and long) around three axes: technical itineraries from field to finished products, the economic model and the ecological impact of each stage of the selected technical itineraries. This project mobilizes major sector players in the Normandy, Hauts-de-France and Grand Est regions. » For its part, Lin et Chanvre Bio is working to sustainably structure a « long fiber » textile hemp sector by drawing inspiration from the flax model. « As the cultivation of long-fiber textile hemp is complex, LCBio has published a specific cultivation guide and the producer's remuneration is correlated to fiber quality », specifies Nathalie Revol, head of LCBio.

Geotextile

Use in agriculture and green spaces... 

Géochanvre manufactures hemp-based plant fabric rolls excluding any recourse to imported fibers such as jute or coir or recycled and synthetic materials. Objective: to guarantee impeccable traceability and a 100% biobased product. « In agriculture and green spaces, these geotextiles constitute an ecological alternative to plastic films for soil coverage and weed control, explains Frédéric Roure, President of Géochanvre. By decomposing, the fabric enriches the soil with carbon and participates in soil regeneration. To develop their use, the ambition is to offer a product whose price can compete with plastic solutions. » Furthermore, ten years of collaboration between Géochanvre and Inrae have made it possible to study the allelopathic properties of hemp, offering prospects for naturally treating certain diseases or insects (such as whitefly) and promoting soil mycorrhization.

... and in events

At the Produrable 2024 show, Frédéric Roure of Géochanvre met Sophie Chenel, CEO of Procédés Chenel specialized in the creation, development and distribution of materials and techniques for event designers. With a common objective of reducing the environmental impact of any action, they are opening a new outlet for hemp geotextile (events) through the creation of a product (the Geo drop) that can be fire-treated to meet the particularly strict fire safety regulations of this sector. « This material lends itself to sewing, cutting, embroidery or even upholstery, specifies Sophie Chenel. A system of tubular partitions has been designed, using velcro strips to facilitate the assembly and extension of structures. In Paris, approximately four million square meters of synthetic carpet are thrown away each year after only two days of use. Substituting even just 10% of this volume with biodegradable hemp would represent a major ecological gain! » Partnerships have been established with agricultural high schools for the return to earth of Geo Drop once used, thus closing the carbon cycle without pollution.

Procédés Chenel carried out the decoration of the All Hemp congress hall: the geotextile partitions assembled with Velcro around the platform as well as the garlands and lamps in the shape of hemp. Sophie Chenel's company is also organizing a student design competition around the Géo Drop in spring in partnership with InterChanvre. The interprofession explains the assets of hemp and offers visits to the competition winners.

Food

Focusing on culinary innovation and short circuits 

During the first day, Philippe Guichard (Interval - UTC) presented the UTC's work aimed at ennobling the plant and promoting the use of hemp in bakery, pastry, confectionery. A collaboration with Stéphane Treuillet, 2011 French baking champion was established to concretely show how to integrate hempseed into our recipes. The latter led a cooking workshop with Marc Guillerme, maintenance manager at Interval, during the half-day dedicated to Food. Participants were thus able to get hands-on by preparing breadsticks and tasting breads and galettes des rois made with hemp. This convivial moment allowed the speakers to demonstrate the assets of hempseed: 10% hemp in a baguette increases the protein content from 28% to 59%.

In parallel, Flore Millet, project manager, and Coralie Chuberre, upstream sectors mission manager at Terres de Sources, explained how hemp, a crop requiring no phytosanitary products or irrigation, protects water resources in Brittany. For its part, Alain Joly, president of Chanvre Nouvelle-Aquitaine defended the added value of short circuits in Nouvelle-Aquitaine and emphasized the importance for producers to control their processing tools to sustain these local sectors.

To support this vitality, InterChanvre displays ambitious but realistic objectives. Doubling the acreage is the priority, but the challenge remains technical: it is necessary to strengthen drying and sorting infrastructures to guarantee impeccable sanitary quality of hempseed and meet the growing demand for food sovereignty.

Cosmetics

Hemp ticks all the boxes 

For decades, the cosmetics industry has massively used mineral oils. But biologically inert, they provide no nutritional benefit to the epidermis. For about fifteen years, a shift toward naturalness has taken place, favoring vegetable oils. While rapeseed, sunflower, coconut and palm are commonly used, these last two oils present an unfavorable carbon footprint due to their distant origin. Research is now moving toward decarbonized and local alternatives. « Hemp oil, of particularly rich composition, offers a ratio of fatty acids capable of blending by biomimicry into the skin barrier, notes Sandrine Lecointe, expert in eco-design in cosmetics and perfumery. It has nourishing, soothing and repairing properties for the skin, without causing the occlusive effect characteristic of mineral oils. » « Unlike the palm tree or coconut tree of which only a part is exploited, hemp is 100% valorized, continues Isabelle Remirel, expert in cosmetic research and innovation. Faced with an unprecedented acceleration of regulatory obligations for the cosmetics industry, hemp ticks all the boxes, thanks to an exemplary carbon footprint and water impact. »

In brief

On June 9 and 10, 2026 at the Cosmetics Industry Suppliers Trade Show (CFIC) in Marseille, InterChanvre will present hemp's assets that respond to the cosmetics sector's challenges in terms of environmental transition.

Economy

How to financially valorize hemp's environmental assets?

A PES to remunerate 10 Sustainable Development Goals

After 18 months of consultations with producers, industrialists and subject experts, InterChanvre has been marketing the PES (Payment for Environmental Services) of the hemp sector for just over a year. The objective is to improve the income of hemp producers by valorizing environmental assets (water, biodiversity and carbon) with private companies wishing to improve their environmental impact (a personalized impact report is delivered by InterChanvre). Hemp indeed responds to ten of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined by the UN, three of which with annual indicators: water (no irrigation, 50% of water needs of corn and rapeseed, no phytosanitary products), biodiversity (no phytosanitary products therefore protected biodiversity, 2.21 CEPP/ha) and carbon (1.22 t of carbon stored/ha of hemp and 1.88 t of carbon avoided/ha of hemp). 80% of the sums collected via the PES are paid back to hemp producers. To guarantee the transparency of the system, an annual sales report is established and transmitted to hemp processing cooperatives specifying the amounts to be redistributed to farmers.

More information on PES

The post-2027 CAP

Since 2024, concerted mobilization has been initiated by InterChanvre and the Fédération Nationale des Producteurs de Chanvre (FNPC) to promote the sector's position in view of the future CAP. « The sector pleads for real support for industrial hemp producers through the maintenance of coupled aid, the implementation of targeted support based on its agro-environmental assets (via eco-schemes or a new system) and the possibility of integrating PES into new environmental mechanisms, specifies Jérôme Gallois, vice-president of InterChanvre. We are also asking for a doubling of the points attributed to hemp in the eco-scheme scale to concretely translate its positive ecological impact and make it more attractive compared to other crops. Finally, France wants to maintain strict differentiation between industrial hemp and « molecule » hemp, which implies exclusivity of CAP support for industrial hemp and maintenance of the THC rate limit at 0.3% to secure outlets. »

Sylvain Maestracci, CEO of the Agency for Services and Payment, confirmed that this limit will be maintained as well as coupled aid which will go from 15% currently to 20-25%. « Eco-schemes and Maec will be transformed into a single aid that can support many things including remunerating a PES. So for hemp, it is being decided in Brussels via the CAP, but also in Paris within the framework of the National Strategic Plan. »

What dynamics of the bioeconomy in France?

Hemp, a solution for the ecological transition

« French agricultural economy is based on only five species (on 75% of cultivated land), a uniformity that weakens its resilience to climate change, explains Florian Rollin, Biobased Products Engineer at Ademe. Diversification through hemp is then a good alternative, especially as it is rather robust in the face of future climatic conditions.

Since biobased product markets are promising, hemp can benefit from this and ensure a certain economic resilience by being present in different markets (cosmetics, construction, textiles, etc.). But biobased products must substitute for existing products and not be added to them, and confirm their environmental benefits through an LCA and not through terms such as « natural » or « biobased ». The hemp sector is indeed in this approach. However, be careful with semantics: a hemp field fixes atmospheric carbon in its biomass but does not sequester it. This carbon will only be « sequestered » in case of substantial return to the soil and « stored » only if it is valorized in a long-life use (over 100 years or even 1000 years!), which few outlets can guarantee. Hemp is therefore a good solution in the face of global warming, hence Ademe's financial support (€18M over the past five years) for a number of research projects (Chabler, Pythagore, Necc'ITE, etc.), industrialization (Chanvre Atlantique, Virgocoop, Geotex, etc.), structuring of local sectors, etc. »

A favorable context for a national strategy

« Analysis of the use of the 310 mt of biomass produced in France (80% from agriculture) in 2025 reveals two critical points: animal feed mobilizes more than a third of primary biomass and bioenergies dominate non-food uses, to the detriment of biobased chemistry and biomaterials, notes Adrien Ludot, doctoral student in agricultural policy and bioeconomy at Humboldt University in Berlin. Moreover, these bioenergies capture the majority of public financial support while the official hierarchy of uses places them as a last resort. French public action suffers from a lack of coherence due to organization by ministerial silos. However, inter-ministerial coordination seems to be emerging. Thus, in the new version of the National Low Carbon Strategy, one of the objectives is to realign financial support with the hierarchy of uses. At the European level, the new bioeconomy strategy published in November 2025 really emphasizes the development of bio-industries. The context is therefore favorable for a new national bioeconomy strategy in France. However, this does not seem to be a priority for the State, which is working on a food sovereignty strategy, without yet integrating non-food. A coalition of actors (farmers, biomaterials industrialists, plant chemists, NGOs, etc.) would be necessary to have real political support for the subject. »

In brief

● As part of the Food Sovereignty Conferences launched on December 8, 2025 by Annie Genevard, Minister of Agriculture, whose objective is to build a ten-year roadmap and strengthen the independence of our agricultural model, the hemp sector is bringing concrete solutions within the « Specialized plant productions » group led by former minister Arnaud Montebourg as referent. Having non-food recognized in this strategy is the sector's priority alongside Bioeconomy for Change (B4C).

● Organized by Construire en Chanvre and supported by InterChanvre, the 2026 National Hemp Construction Prize (PNCC) will reward exemplary projects integrating hemp as a construction material (new or renovation) in five categories: tertiary buildings, social housing, collective housing, Public Buildings and individual houses. 18 candidates have been pre-selected from the 30 submitted files. The awards ceremony will take place at the Bois Construction Forum at the Grand Palais in Paris on February 26 at 4:30 p.m. with a presentation of the 18 candidates by Nathalie Fichaux and an awards ceremony by Yolaine Pofichet, vice-president of the Order of Architects (CNOA).

Industry News 

● Jérôme Gallois was elected president of FNPC (National Federation of Hemp Producers) on January 22, 2026, succeeding Stéphane Borderieux. A farmer in the northwest of Aube, he has been an administrator of La Chanvrière since 2004. Also involved in FNPC and InterChanvre, Jérôme Gallois participates in the work of the Copa-Cogeca Flax and Hemp group to promote the positions of the French Hemp sector for the future CAP.

● Guillaume Maman was elected president of La Chanvrière on January 28, 2026, succeeding Benoit Savourat. A farmer in Aube on a mixed crop-livestock farm, he has been growing hemp since 2003 (currently 35 ha). An administrator of La Chanvrière for 17 years, he participated in developing its strategy.

● Pierre-Étienne Finot was elected president of the Interval group on December 19, 2025, succeeding Didier Vagnaux. At 36 years old, established for 15 years in mixed crop-livestock farming in Haute-Saône, he had been vice-president of Interval for three years and an administrator for eight years.

● Arno Dignan joined InterChanvre in January 2026 as project manager for the coming months. An agricultural engineer graduated from Purpan, complemented by a specialized Master's in agrifood innovation management, he will take over part of Joël Lagneau's files and will support project leaders, manage the market observatory and ensure the sector's outreach, particularly at the upcoming SIA.

Agenda

Upcoming

● From February 21 to March 1: International Agricultural Show (Paris Expo Porte de Versailles). InterChanvre will be present on Monday February 23 on the Terres OléoPro stand (Hall 4-F059) with a pop-up area to present the hemp sector and democratize hemp through fun activities.

● From February 25 to 27: 15^th edition of the Wood Construction Forum (at the Grand Palais in Paris). Construire en Chanvre will be present with the Comité des géo & biosourcés and will notably award the National Hemp Construction Prize sponsored by InterChanvre, on February 26 at 4:30 p.m.

● On February 13: Installation of the first prefabricated hempcrete walls by Wall'up for the offices of the new Planète Chanvre plant (in Aulnoy in Seine-et-Marne) which will triple its production capacity.