. `` A Frenchman is someone who cultivates with modern evolution his past . It 's someone who protects moral values , cultural values and artistic values , and when I say cultural values I would include camembert . '' Meslon and small cheese makers like Francois Durand , who has 40 cows , have struggled and won the right to an Appelation d'Origine Controllee -- the mark AOC for their `` Camembert de Normandie '' which carries the same cachet as a chateau label for wine . For Durand making cheese is about not cutting corners . `` You have to have the passion , '' he says . `` Yes it 's difficult because it means a lot of work . We make it all by hand . I do believe it is important because the cheese is an emblem of France . It is a gastronomic emblem . '' Still some small cheesemakers have been driven out of business and the taste and smell of their particular cheeses are lost to the world forever . For Michel Delorme it was a combination of new , more stringent rules and his age that led him to quit producing
CAMEMBERT , France -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- We 're up in the north central part of France -- Normandy -- to see what 's happening with French cheese . Cheese lovers will be happy to know , just about nothing , at least as far as the traditional cheeses are concerned . Cheese from the Camembert region now carries the same cachet as a chateau label for wine . But for the milk industry in general , it 's another story . It has now a larger annual turnover than the steel industry in France -LRB- which admittedly is in decline . -RRB- Somehow the French have figured a way to export dairy products to people who already have cows and their own dairy industries -- to the tune of nearly $ 4 billion -LRB- $ 6 billion -RRB- per year . CNN spoke to a few of the people who do just that everyday and who are part of the changing face of France . Philippe Meslon , the mayor of Saint-Loup de Fribois and the administrator of the Saint-Loup cheese works says : `` A camembert not made out of raw milk is like making love without sex