Jean de Couespel, president of GPV Groupe, said the move was a result of "a high complexity of redundancy in France".

However, he added that there would be no impact on the day-to-day trading position of Heritage Envelopes.

"The management in France has been working on a solution to restructure the technical products business, but it has become clear that it is too complex to reorganise the business in its current form," he said.

The companies in France are continuing to trade under the control of a court-appointed representative.

As part of the administration process, de Couespel said the administrator would be working with external parties to secure long-term stability for the remaining business.   

Mark Sears, Heritage Envelopes chief executive, said: "Heritage is a separate legal entity to GPV, and the day-to-day activities of Heritage are not affected. 

"Heritage has separate financing arrangements which are not linked to the group."

Heritage Envelopes owns Chapman Envelopes.

No further details were available at the time of writing.