French leaders have long dazzled their visitors with furniture ranging from Louis XIV’s tortoiseshell chest of drawers to the concrete designer desk upon which President Macron writes.

Now ordinary homeowners are being given an opportunity to buy items made by the state furniture workshop that served kings and queens in the ancien régime and has continued the service for presidents and their ministers since the fall of the monarchy.

In a small sign of the way in which France is modernising Mobilier National (National Furniture) is to embrace capitalism for the first time in its history. From today the workshop will put on sale a line of chairs and sofas that have been created in collaboration with Ligne Roset, a designer furniture firm.

The move