Mondo Montres: Five French Watch Releases You Need to Know About

Although it might ruffle some feathers, it wouldn’t be incorrect to say that the Swiss watch industry began in France. First, King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, which resulted in the religious persecution of Protestant Huguenot watchmakers and their subsequent mass immigration to neutral Switzerland.

Then, in the 18th century, the Huguenot watchmakers were followed by legends, like Abraham-Louis Breguet, who were chased out during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror.

Post WWII, Swiss manufacturers soon dominated the world market. By the 1980s, many French-founded or French-owned brands such as Cartier, F.P.Journe, Bell & Ross, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, and Van Cleef & Arpels crossed the Jura Mountains to capitalize on having the golden words “Swiss Made” on the dial.

However, recently, “French Made” is experiencing a renaissance in watchmaking, with venerable brands, like LIP and Yema, as well as independent manufacturers, like Trilobe and Beaubleu, bringing movement manufacturing back to France. And it has made a significant impact on the watch enthusiast scene.

Here’s a closer look at some of the newest releases à la française.

Established by Emmanuel Lipmann in 1867, LIP is one of the oldest French watch brands. Not only has the brand provided watches for world leaders such as Winston Churchill and Bill Clinton and produced iconic timepieces such as the Roger Tallon-designed Mach 2000, but LIP also built the first French quartz watches in 1973.
 

However, like all watchmakers in the 1970s and 1980s, LIP struggled. To stay afloat financially, the Maison started using imported movements.

Now, convinced of the need to restore French watchmaking honor, LIP management used the release of the TYPE 14, an aviator watch featuring a case design inspired by the onboard instruments found in the cockpits of WWII-era French fighter aircraft, to launch its in-house LIP Calibre R26 Manufacture movement.
 

LIP went back to the drawing board to develop this self-winding mechanical calibre. Working in collaboration with the SupMicroTech engineering school in Besançon, it took three years to create the Calibre R26.

On top of the Gallic design codes and the manufacture movement, 70% of the watch’s parts are made in France, specifically the Besançon region.

Designer Nicolas Ducoudert started Beaubleu in 2017, and its calling card is the Seconde Française, with its round, flying saucer-like case. This collection comprises two limited edition watches, the makers of which claim embody the philosophy of uninhibited and paradoxical time.
 

What lends these timepieces their certain je ne sais quoi is a unique display with circular hour and minute indicators and the flying second hand. (Think of the Raketa Copernicus if it had a French passport.) Flip the watch over to view its equally intriguing France Ébauche FE movement, which marks the first time in Beaubleu’s history it has used a movement made in France.
 

The open caseback highlights this satisfyingly symmetrical mechanism. The oscillation weight, decorated with the Beaubleu logo, floats above a balance wheel supported by two bridges, visible from any angle. Magnifique!

Founded by Jérôme Burgert and Gabriel Vachette in 2019, Serica was born from the desire to return to the golden age of watchmaking by creating mechanical instruments of great sophistication.

The independent brand has come a long way in developing a recognizable design language in this very short amount of time. And while technically it uses Swiss-sourced calibres, everything else about its 5303 Dive Watch was created in close collaboration with the French Navy’s elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Divers Association.
 

Serica’s most recent addition to the brand’s 5303 collection, the Ref. 5303 PLD, features the new blue ceramic graduated bezel with a double graduation (meters and minutes) “DT MAX” diving scale. Its 39mm stainless steel case is 12.2mm thick and measures 46.5mm from a lyre-shaped lug-to-lug.

Behind the caseback is a soft-iron cage resistant to 50,000 A/M, which allows the brand to bill the watch as an “amagnetic chronometer.” And it comes with a steel mesh bracelet with an articulating attachment to the end link so it can drop straight down for a smaller wrist.
 

Lastly, like the rest of the 5303 collection, the Ref. 5303 PLD features bold retro touches such as the lollipop hands.

Gautier Massonneau, the brand’s founder, left his bank job and launched Trilobe in 2018. Like most brands listed here, Trilobe is known for its strong visual signatures, notably its three-ring display and domed crystal.
 

Massonneau is not a watchmaker by trade, so he started out using modified standard base calibres made in Switzerland for his creations. However, with the help of movement developer Chronode SA, Trilobe became yet another brand using the services of Swiss movement maker Le Cercle des Horlogers to build the X-Centric micro-rotor automatic calibre exclusively for Trilobe.
 

This “Conceived in France, Developed in Switzerland” movement has become a hallmark of the brand. Then, in March, the brand launched a version of its futuristic Une Folle Journée with an open dial so that wearers could better appreciate the carefully polished, multi-tiered bridges and plates and the micro-blasted surfaces of this 6.49mm thick movement.

Born in 1948, Yema is committed to making France more recognized as a watchmaking center. And while the Maison still relies on movement partners for specific collections, notably Sellita for its Superman Heritage line of dive watches, they have long offered the in-house YEMA2000 movement.
 

The brand has invested millions of Euros in making its own mechanisms – a goal that’s even more impressive considering Yema is an independent brand. The brand’s most recent launch, the Granvelle CMM.20, employs Olivier Mory-designed Morteau 20, an ultra-thin micro-rotor movement mostly produced in Yema’s Morteau workshops in the French Jura.
 

This modern and minimalist watch also paints a picture of French aesthetics through a distinctive ultra-thin, cushion-shaped case that was inspired by the arches of the Palais Granvelle in Besançon.
 

Finally, the Granvelle CMM.20 comes in a 39mm, brushed stainless steel case with polished vertical coin-edge flanks and features a guilloché-finished dial (in either forest green, black, or deep blue) framed by a white chapter ring.