{"id":441593,"date":"2025-09-21T19:32:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T19:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/441593\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T19:32:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T19:32:18","slug":"wealth-tax-would-be-deadly-for-french-economy-says-europes-richest-man-bernard-arnault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/441593\/","title":{"rendered":"Wealth tax would be deadly for French economy, says Europe\u2019s richest man | Bernard Arnault"},"content":{"rendered":"

Europe\u2019s richest man, the luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault<\/a>, has said that a wealth tax that could cost him more than \u20ac1bn (\u00a3817m) would be deadly for France\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

The French founder of LVMH Mo\u00ebt Hennessy Louis Vuitton<\/a> said in a statement to the Sunday Times that calls for a 2% wealth tax on all assets \u201caims to destroy the liberal economy, the only one that works for the good of all\u201d.<\/p>\n

The idea of a wealth tax has steadily gained ground in France because of a political crisis, with the government trying to push through unpopular budget cuts. The idea of a 2% wealth tax on fortunes worth more than \u20ac100m has been proposed by Gabriel Zucman, an economics professor<\/a> who has become a household name in France.<\/p>\n

The economist argues that the tax \u2013 named the Zucman tax by others \u2013 could help France with its squeezed budget. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, this month appointed a new prime minister, S\u00e9bastien Lecornu<\/a>, after the centrist Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou failed to win support for an austerity budget<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Arnault \u2013 previously the world\u2019s richest man<\/a> \u2013 claimed that a 2% wealth tax would be an \u201coffensive, which is deadly for our economy\u201d. He also said he was \u201ccertainly the largest individual taxpayer and one of the largest professional taxpayers through the companies I run\u201d in France.<\/p>\n

Arnault\u2019s net worth stood at $169bn (\u00a3125bn) on Friday, mainly because of his 48% stake in LVMH Mo\u00ebt Hennessy Louis Vuitton, according to Bloomberg. After joining his family company and turning it from construction to property, Arnault grew his fortune by buying up brands ranging from the jewellers Bulgari and Tiffany & Co, the fashion houses Christian Dior<\/a> and Celine, to perfumes and whiskey brand Glenmorangie.<\/p>\n

Arnault, who lives in Paris, sparked a French national debate over tax in 2012 when he sought Belgian citizenship<\/a>. However, in April 2013, he withdrew his application as \u201ca gesture of my attachment to France and my faith in its future\u201d, according to Bloomberg.<\/p>\n

Zucman is a professor of economics at the Paris School of Economics and the \u00c9cole normale sup\u00e9rieure, and last year wrote a prominent study<\/a> on the wealth tax for the G20. In June, Zucman wrote in the Guardian<\/a>: \u201cUnprecedented wealth concentration \u2013 and the unbridled power that comes with such wealth \u2013 has distorted our democracy and is driving societal and economic tensions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wealth tax could raise as much as \u20ac20bn, according to Zucman. However, other economists have argued that it would raise only \u20ac5bn if the ultra-wealthy leave France<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is clearly not a technical or economic debate, but rather a clearly stated desire to destroy the French economy,\u201d Arnault\u2019s statement said. \u201cI cannot believe that the French political forces that govern or have governed the country in the past could lend any credibility to this offensive, which is deadly for our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s richest man, the luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault, has said that a wealth tax that could cost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-441593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115243958203921359","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}