{"id":477700,"date":"2025-10-06T08:06:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T08:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/477700\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T08:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T08:06:12","slug":"pierre-edouard-sterin-wants-to-make-france-great-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/477700\/","title":{"rendered":"Pierre-\u00c9douard St\u00e9rin wants to make France great again"},"content":{"rendered":"

When conservative billionaire<\/a> Pierre-\u00c9douard St\u00e9rin caught the eye of Le Monde<\/a> last year, the newspaper noted how stealthily he was \u201cadvancing his pawns\u201d in the chess game of hard-right French politics<\/a>. A tax exile based in Belgium, St\u00e9rin had just been outed as the financial force and guiding spirit behind Pericles, \u201ca secret, wide-ranging project aimed at boosting right-wing forces\u201d and restoring \u201cFrance\u2019s grandeur\u201d, to quote Politico<\/a>. The timely leaking of internal documents \u2013 in which the shady group vowed to achieve \u201cthe successful exercise of power at the earliest opportunity\u201d \u2013 caused a sensation in France<\/a>, unleashing a potent mix of conspiracy theory and patriotic debate. The country\u2019s current political chaos provides ample opportunity for a re-run.<\/p>\n

St\u00e9rin is leaving no stone unturned in his quest to revive France with his bespoke prescription of retro Catholic morality, dry economics and a hardline \u201cre-migration\u201d message that even Marine Le Pen<\/a>\u2019s National Rally party dubs \u201ctoxic\u201d, says The Times<\/a>. He has spent hundreds of millions of euros at the grassroots, with education a key target. In addition to ridding France of \u201cthe woke insanity imported from American universities\u201d, he\u2019s planning \u201ca network of Christian private schools\u201d. He\u2019s also an investor in Studio 496, whose mission is to conserve the heritage of \u201cLa France profonde\u201d by sponsoring activities such as village fetes. More overtly political projects include a Parisian think tank and a training college for would-be candidates.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Some call \u201cthe billionaire who wants to make France great again\u201d the country\u2019s Elon Musk<\/a>. In truth, he\u2019s more \u201ceminence grise\u201d \u2013 happiest pulling strings from the shadows, says Politico. A self-described introvert, with \u201ca tendency for extreme rationalism\u201d, St\u00e9rin famously ranks new acquaintances on a scale of one to ten on a dedicated Excel spreadsheet. His wife Amandine wasn\u2019t exempt. He scored her on a strict set of marriageability criteria before popping the question. Fortunately, she delivered \u2013 quite literally: bearing her \u201cpronatalist\u201d husband a fine family of five. He\u2019s raising them on tough love, telling the French financial weekly Challenges <\/a>that they won\u2019t inherit anything. \u201cIt\u2019s a real freedom to start with nothing in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

MoneyWeek<\/p>\n

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nGet 6 issues free\n<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to Money Morning<\/p>\n

Don’t miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter<\/p>\n

Don’t miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter<\/p>\n

St\u00e9rin, 51, grew up in a middle-class family in Evreux, a town in Normandy, where he began his career as an entrepreneur at the age of 13, selling RAM sticks for video games, says The Times. He launched 20 failed businesses before striking gold. Smartbox, a gift-box provider specialising in short breaks, proved hugely popular and established his financial clout. These days his investment firm, Otium Capital<\/a>, has assets ranging from tech to health.<\/p>\n

St\u00e9rin has donated generously to Le Pen\u2019s party, but says he is keeping his options open \u2013 viewing the popularist Rally party as too wedded to the state in its \u201cdirigiste\u201d economic thinking and too liberal on social matters such as abortion. Nonetheless, the links run deep, says Politico. The CEO of St\u00e9rin\u2019s Otium fund, Fran\u00e7ois Durvye, is also \u201ca member of Marine Le Pen\u2019s inner circle and one of her most trusted advisers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pierre-\u00c9douard St\u00e9rin is reaching for heaven<\/p>\n

By US standards, St\u00e9rin\u2019s wealth \u2013 he is said to be worth \u20ac1.6 billion \u2013 and political largesse look trivial. But the rules on political donations in France are much tighter, and he has been in the crosshairs of prosecutors. St\u00e9rin is now in the frustrating position of being a wealthy backer in search of a candidate. But for the moment, he is attending to his soul. \u201cBy giving away my fortune\u2026 I am optimising my chances of eternal life,\u201d he told Catholic daily La Croix<\/a>. Typically, he\u2019s researched the process thoroughly. \u201cI typed on Google: how to become a saint.\u201d It is \u201can ultra-motivating stimulus to get up in the morning\u201d.<\/p>\n

This article was first published in MoneyWeek’s magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When conservative billionaire Pierre-\u00c9douard St\u00e9rin caught the eye of Le Monde last year, the newspaper noted how stealthily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-477700","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115326195006196233","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477700","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=477700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}