The unstoppable push of the luxury sector, an obvious symptom of the enormous income imbalances on a planetary scale, is affecting the record of the richest. The latest classification by the US magazine Forbes places two French citizens, Bernard Arnault and Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, for the first time as the richest man and woman in the world thanks to the stratospheric stock market value reached by their two respective empires, LVMH ( Louis Vuitton) and L'Oreal.
In the case of Arnault, 74, he has surpassed the barrier of 200,000 million dollars, a figure only reached before by the boss of Tesla, Twitter and Space X, Elon Musk, and by the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, although for them the fortune has shrunk due to the fall in the price of the shares of technology companies. The whimsical fluctuations of the markets make the ranking dance within this Olympus of colossal patrimonies every year. Bettencourt Meyers is the richest woman, but she is only 11th globally. She is outnumbered by ten males.
The news that two French people sit on the podium of male and female wealth could have psychological and even political consequences in a country where there is strong discontent, as shown by the continuous mobilizations against the pension reform. Despite its generous social protection system and its high taxes, a sector of the population considers that redistributive justice is lacking in France and that the delay in the retirement age is another example of the lack of sensitivity of its rulers, who always make people pay to the more modest layers. This situation would have worsened since Emmanuel Macron arrived at the Élysée in 2017. Not surprisingly, the young head of state was soon hung with the label of “president of the rich”, after having abolished the tax on large fortunes.
Knowing that the master of LVMH and the heiress of L'Oréal have such a level of resources fuels the discourse of populism, especially the radical left and its highest tribune, Jean-Luc Mélechon, who almost gave surprise and was about to to advance to the final round in the last presidential elections.
Forbes' calculation was based on the price of shares held by magnates on March 11. Arnault reached, according to that estimate, 211,000 million dollars, ahead of Musk, with 180,000 million and Bezos (114,000). Bettencourt Meyers must settle for $80.5 billion. It is the third consecutive year that she has been ranked as the richest woman. In 2016 and 2017, that place was occupied by her late mother, Liliane Bettencourt.
Forbes finds that 43 people live in France – among them, seven women – with fortunes of more than 1,000 million dollars. The global amount of the assets of this elite club has grown by 20.6%, largely due to the revaluation of companies dedicated to luxury goods.
Arnault is making decisions to ensure his family controls LVMH's multiple brands for the long term. His daughter Delphine is already running Christian Dior, and his son Antoine is in charge of the holding company. Other Kindred occupy strategic positions. Everything indicates, then, that the Arnaults will be a regular name on the Forbes list, despite the fluid evolution in the league played by billionaires.
