In 2025, France accounted for 6.5% of the European Union’s extra-EU import value for goods covered by the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), equivalent to about 7.2 billion euros. The figure measures import value, not a uniform CBAM burden across products or companies, while the supply chains extend into French aerospace, automotive, engineering, construction and agriculture.
Exposure extends through industrial supply chains
The reported imports include aluminium, steel, fertilisers, cement and clinker. France has major industrial buyers, although its customs share is smaller than Italy’s or Germany’s. These downstream sectors use products whose costs and supplier mix can be influenced by the carbon border mechanism.
An aluminium supply chain may run from a non-EU smelter to a European rolling or extrusion plant and then to a French aircraft or vehicle producer. Constellium has publicly disclosed an aerospace supply relationship with Airbus, but that does not establish that primary metal imported from a particular origin entered any identified aerospace component. The same caution applies when tracing imported steel to car plants or structural projects.
For fertilisers, the initial importer may be a wholesaler or agricultural supply group, with farmers or cooperatives typically the end users. Cement and clinker can pass through grinding operations, terminals and concrete manufacturers before reaching construction contractors. Cementir has published information on Egyptian white-cement exports to France, but the importer of record and final concrete buyer require separate verification.
Customs entries do not capture all beneficiaries
Assessing exposure requires distinguishing domestic production, intra-EU sourcing and direct non-EU imports. A French manufacturer buying metal through a German distributor may be economically exposed without making a direct CBAM declaration. Conversely, a French declarant may import goods and resell them elsewhere in the EU, so an industrial-beneficiary study cannot stop at national customs entries.
A company map could combine product-level customs data with aerospace and automotive supplier disclosures, metal processors, agricultural distributors and cement terminals. For each chain, it should record the foreign production site, industrial conversion stage, final buyer and pricing mechanism. Banks and manufacturers could use such a map to test supplier switching, carbon-price scenarios and contractual pass-through, rather than assuming that all 7.2 billion euros of imports carry an identical burden.