Jan Liebherr, President of the Administrative Board of Liebherr-International AG, was awarded the French National Order of the Legion of Honour in February 2025. The Legion of Honour, France’s highest-ranking award, rewards military and civilian service, outstanding talent and great virtues. Jan Liebherr was awarded the first degree of the Legion of Honour, the so-called insignia ‘Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur’ by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée Palace in the French capital.
Emmanuel Macron honoured Jan Liebherr’s contribution to the development of French industry by awarding him the National Order of Merit and making him a ‘Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur’ – comparable to a ‘knighthood’. In his speech, the French President emphasised the Liebherr Group’s 60-year history in France, Liebherr’s deep roots and ties with the country, particularly at its sites in Alsace in eastern France and Occitania in south-western France, as well as Liebherr’s significant investments in the local economy. This includes, in particular, the recent purchase of a large plot of land in Nambsheim, Alsace.
France is one of the Liebherr Group’s largest markets and plays a particularly important role in the Group’s history: the country is one of the first foreign markets that the Liebherr Group, founded in Kirchdorf a.d. Iller in southern Germany, tapped into. In 1961, the company founder and Jan Liebherr’s grandfather, Hans Liebherr, opened the first French production facility for crawler excavators at a site in Colmar – Liebherr-France SAS, which still exists today. In addition, Colmar is now the centre for the Group’s activities in the mining sector, with the development and production of large excavators. Liebherr employed around 3,000 people at its various sites in and around Colmar last year, making it a key player in the region’s economic activity. The activities of the Group are to be significantly expanded in the Alsace region within the coming years as part of a major investment on a 47-hectare site. In Occitania, in the south-west of France, Liebherr is one of the leading European manufacturers of air management systems for aircraft, with sites in Toulouse, Campsas and Montauban. Including its various sales and service branches, the Group employed over 4,000 people throughout France in 2024.
