The maker of Sophie la Girafe reportedly ran a ‘fake’ factory in France for years, while secretly producing the iconic toy in China
3-MIN READ3-MIN1 ListenXiaofei Xuin ParisPublished: 3:56pm, 8 May 2026Updated: 4:01pm, 8 May 2026As the world held its breath over the fate of the Middle East this week, France has been gripped by a very different story: a scandal over a chewy rubber giraffe.Sophie la Girafe, the country’s national toy, has long been a symbol of “made in France” craftsmanship, sold as a gift to newborns across the country. But this week, it was revealed the beloved toy has secretly been manufactured in China for the past decade.
Vulli, the company behind the toy, quietly began moving production to China as far back as 2013, according to an investigation by French outlet Mediapart. By 2019, manufacturing in France had effectively ceased – the factory in Rumilly, a small town in the French Alps, was kept running only to package toys already made in China.
Current and former workers told Mediapart they saw no one working in the factory and the production line would only spring to life when clients or journalists came to visit.
“We’d place four or five people in the workshop, the raw materials were expired. Everything was fake,” one manager said.
French authorities launched an investigation into the company – including on suspicion of deceptive commercial practices – after an inspection in 2025 found the brand was still selling toys with the “made in France” label, according to the French outlet.
