Translation of "Stitching thread " (English → French) :

g) Textile products other than those under points b) to f) | Base or underlying fabrics, stiffenings and reinforcements, inter-linings and canvas backings, stitching and assembly threads unless they replace the warp and/or weft of the fabric, fillings not having an insulating function and, subject to Article 13(1), linings.For the purposes of this provision:(i) the base or underlying material of textile products which serve as a backing for the use-surface, in particular in blankets and double fabrics, and the backings of velvet or plush fabrics and kindred products shall not be regarded as backings to be removed(ii) ‘stiffenings and rei ...[+++]nforcements’ mean the yarns or materials added at specific and limited points of the textile products to strengthen them or to give them stiffness or thickness |

These semantics would not go down very well, I fear, with the thousands upon thousands of grieving motherless children in the developing world, or with those children whose mothers have died in agony because there was no anaesthetic, or with a mother bleeding to death because there is no thread for stitches, or a mother dying because there is not the three cents to buy the magnesium sulphate that would save her from death through haemorrhaging.

Stitching thread should be protected against substitution.

for other textile products: base or underlying fabrics, stiffenings and reinforcements, inter-linings and canvas backings, stitching and assembly threads unless they replace the warp and/or weft of the fabric, fillings not having an insulating function and, subject to Article 9(1), linings.

– Sewing machines (lock stitch only) with heads of a weight not exceeding 16 kg without motor or 17 kg with motor | Manufacture in which: the value of all the materials used does not exceed 40 % of the ex-works price of the product,the value of all the non-originating materials used in assembling the head (without motor) does not exceed the value of all the originating materials used, andthe thread-tension, crochet and zigzag mechanisms used are originating | |

(c) for other textile products: base or underlying fabrics, stiffenings and reinforcements, inter-linings and canvas backings, stitching and assembly threads unless they replace the warp and/or weft of the fabric, fillings not having an insulating function and, subject to Article 9 (1), linings.