{"id":4766,"date":"2026-04-10T15:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/4766\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T15:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:22:08","slug":"le-pen-met-frances-richest-man-and-other-major-ceos-at-secret-dinner-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/4766\/","title":{"rendered":"Le Pen met France\u2019s richest man and other major CEOs at secret dinner \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For years, France\u2019s entrepreneurial elite have been deeply suspicious of a populist party that has flipflopped on key economic policies such as membership of the eurozone. In 2017, Arnault backed French President Emmanuel Macron against Le Pen, and had until this week refused to meet National Rally leaders.<\/p>\n<p>But with Le Pen and National Rally President Jordan Bardella topping the polls ahead of next year\u2019s presidential election, business leaders <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/france-far-right-national-rally-le-pen-bardella-election-economic-business-leader-opportunity\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">have been seeking to build bridges<\/a> with far-right leaders to gain influence over a party whose economic vision often clashes with their interests.<\/p>\n<p>Pouyann\u00e9 had in January called for business leaders <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bfmtv.com\/economie\/entreprises\/le-pdg-de-totalenergies-patrick-pouyanne-appelle-les-patrons-a-ne-pas-refuser-le-dialogue-avec-le-rn-et-lfi-et-pointe-la-faillite-collective-des-partis-republicains-et-des-elites_AN-202601040259.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">to talk to the far right<\/a> and the hard-left France Unbowed party to \u201cintroduce some realism into a confused and illusory political debate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to an executive who works for one of the attendees, the encounter wasn\u2019t an opportunity for business leaders to \u201ccozy up\u201d to Le Pen, but rather a robust exchange of views.<\/p>\n<p>But a former government official who was granted anonymity to protect relationships with past colleagues said that the symbolism of Le Pen \u201cmeeting Arnault, Pouyann\u00e9 and others contributes to normalizing her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The dinner was held at the exclusive Drouant restaurant in Paris, according to the French weekly Le Nouvel Obs, which first reported the meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Le Nouvel Obs reported that more than a dozen CEOs were present at the dinner, including Engie CEO Catherine MacGregor; Sebastien Bazin from the hotels group Accor; Cyrille Bollor\u00e9, the son of the conservative billionaire Vincent Bollor\u00e9; and Henri de Castries, the former chief executive of AXA insurance.<\/p>\n<p>Pauline de Saint Remy and Alexandre L\u00e9chenet contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For years, France\u2019s entrepreneurial elite have been deeply suspicious of a populist party that has flipflopped on key&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[984,36,1859,5,282,4408,3954,2645],"class_list":["post-4766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-companies","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-far-right","tag-france","tag-french-politics","tag-henri-de-castries","tag-jordan-bardella","tag-marine-le-pen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}