Millau and Gloves: C'est urgent!

At least it seemed like it was at the time I bookmarked this!

An October 2007 Agence France Presse article explains how the glove industry is making a comeback in Millau, Aveyron's second-largest city.

I knew Millau had once enjoyed a booming glove industry; I knew that said industry had fallen on hard times for reasons obvious to anyone who knows anything about manufacturing in the Western world; I knew that there were signs of a renaissance in the industry.

But I did not know this fun fact:

"Millau has been since the Middle Ages the world's centre of glove-making. There is an impeccable logic as to why: in a word, Roquefort. To supply the ewes' milk needed to make the famous blue cheese, lambs were slaughtered soon after birth when their pelts were too small to be turned into anything bigger than a pair of gloves."

So, the Roquefort connection may be omnipresent in Millau's economy. I wonder if there's any link between the cheese and the viaduct?

(Expect more "C'est urgent!" bulletins as I try to wade through my over-flowing "France Profonde Urgent" favorites file!)