What does Bernard Arnault think of Mediapart, Le Canard enchaîné and La Lettre? As far as the head of luxury goods giant LVMH is concerned, these independent media outlets, which operate without advertising, are filled with “unscrupulous journalists” who “exploit the public's interest in luxury to attract a new readership in a sensationalist way”. It seems clear that the billionaire has little appreciation for our revelations about the other side of his luxury empire.
He is also keen to make his feelings known to his executive committee, made up of his group's top executives, including his daughter Delphine Arnault. In a letter dated January 17th, and revealed by online site La Lettre, Bernard Arnault set out the names of the news outlets to whom LVMH employees are subject to an “absolute ban on speaking”.
Described as “so-called investigative sites” or “so-called confidential newsletters”, these “biased publications” have thus now been blacklisted by the world’s number one luxury brand group. There are seven media in all, including Mediapart, obviously, and also two titles from the independent publisher Indigo Publications - 'La Lettre' and 'Glitz Paris' - as well as investigative publication Le Canard Enchaîné, 'Puck' - an American online media outlet - and 'Miss Tweed', a Paris-based site specialising in the luxury industry.
The directive also applies to l’Informé, a critical economic website, one of whose shareholders, Xavier Niel - who holds 5% of the shares through his company NJJ Medias – is the partner of Delphine Arnault. Finally, the ban extends to “any other confidential newsletters or sheets of the same type that exist or may be created”.
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Bernard Arnault also reminds his executive committee, whose members are responsible for passing this directive down to their subordinates, that the only authorised interactions with the press are those carried out via the “communication channels we have established within our companies, which adhere to very precise rules”. In particularly menacing terms he issues a warning to anyone deviating from this “recommendation”, stating that he will be “uncompromising”.
The LVMH boss has clearly chosen the stick over the carrot. “Any breach (and this will inevitably become known) will be considered a serious offence, with the resulting consequences,” he writes. In short, anyone working for the owner of the luxury goods group who maintains “relations with unscrupulous journalists” to share “information or comments about life in the group” risks the sack. Bernard Arnault even dares to make this claim: “As owners of major media outlets, we know the importance of reliable and honest information.”
We have already seen the case of French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, the boss of news and opinion channel CNews and Le Journal du Dimanche Sunday newspaper, who silenced his former employees by making them sign non-disparagement clauses. Now we see Bernard Arnault imposing a cloak of silence across his group, to stifle anyone denouncing poor practices by his business empire and to deter anyone who might consider becoming a whistle-blower. Here are two business leaders clearly unhappy about the freedom of the press.
The reality behind the glitz
This is especially significant given that Bernard Arnault wields considerable influence in the media industry. His LVMH group is omnipresent. He owns business newspaper Les Échos, daily newspaper Le Parisien, Radio Classique, financial weekly Investir and, as of October 1st, Paris Match news magazine. His print advertising is everywhere, thereby exerting financial pressure even on newspapers he does not own.
His brand ambassadors spread the group's message - and its ultra-liberalism - far and wide. From Rihanna, who sold her cosmetics brand to LVMH, to Pharrell Williams, now hired by Louis Vuitton, and the LVMH athletes who displayed the group's colours throughout the recent Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris. But while LVMH’s presence is everywhere, the group is far less enthusiastic about being talked about, especially when it comes to talk about the reality behind the glitz.
For the record it should be noted that this is the same group that, irritated by the activism of the northern France-based newspaper Fakir, hired former French domestic intelligence chief Bernard Squarcini to “infiltrate” and undermine it. In 2013, 'The Shark' - as Squarcini is known – used all his contacts in the police and intelligence services to thwart the efforts of this small newspaper from Amiens with a very limited readership. This shows the extent of Bernard Arnault’s aversion to criticism.
The operation backfired as journalist François Ruffin – now a Member of Parliament - turned the episode into the successful documentary 'Merci Patron!' ('Thanks boss!'), which has permanently tarnished the image of the patron saint of luxury goods. This espionage affair – which bordered on covert ops - was eventually revealed to the public by Mediapart in 2019. At the time, LVMH did not respond to Mediapart's questions, just as Bernard Arnault himself avoided police inquiries, claiming to have “no information on the subject”, despite intercepted phone calls proving the billionaire was in charge.
The case never went to trial, as the legal system now employs so-called public interest judicial agreements or CJIPs as they are known in France. By signing one and paying a fine of 10 million euros, LVMH avoided a trial, a conviction and - above all - the media scrutiny that a courtroom battle would have brought with it.
Replies that avoid the issue
LVMH did not much like Ruffin’s documentary, nor did it care for our many more recent articles about the group. Take, for example, our coverage of its takeover of Paris. In May, we published five articles documenting how the group, with the help of the city council, had effectively transformed Paris into yet another LVMH product. We sent a long list of questions to the group, but despite several follow-ups, they never replied. By that time Bernard Arnault’s directive had already been issued.
And when, in the past, LVMH’s press office did respond, their answers rarely addressed our many questions in a specific fashion. For instance, we did receive responses when we investigated working conditions for self-employed workers at Louis Vuitton’s photo studio, security guards at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, sales assistants at the luxury La Samaritaine department store in Paris, and black employees at that same department store. But very often, when they didn’t like our questions - and that happened a lot - the press office gave answers that did not address the original question.
And when an investigation really irritated them, the group made little effort to hide its displeasure. Now that Bernard Arnault has cut all lines of communication, we will miss those friendly exchanges. In memory of the good old days, here are a few examples.
LVMH was, for example, very displeased with our investigation into the hidden spy cameras in the basement of La Samaritaine and was insulting before giving an official response.
In their language, our questions had become “supposedly-substantiated assertions” and “allegations”. And at the end of the email, the luxury giant even offered us advice on writing, urging “caution in the publication of your article” and advising us to “refrain from mentioning the names, first names or initials of the individuals (you are implicating)”.
After the investigation was published, La Samaritaine sent us another equally charming letter, a formal notice demanding that we take down the videos from the aforementioned cameras, ostensibly to protect the “employees' personal data”. The issue was no longer the employer filming its employees - outside of any legal framework and without informing them - but rather a media outlet revealing this information.
The reality behind this entire case is that they were trying to prevent the article’s publication.
We had grown accustomed to such cordial exchanges with the department store, with the press office frequently reproaching the article’s author, Khedidja Zerouali, for having once been a member of the CGT trade union, as were some of the employees she was in contact with at the time. For in a clever piece of snooping, LVMH had discovered this union affiliation through the declaration of interests that all of us publish on Mediapart.
Far from La Samaritaine and its issues, Samira R., a young cosmetics creator in the Ardennes in northern France, will long remember the attention the group pays to its image.
For two years, the self-employed entrepreneur battled with the national intellectual property office INPI to be able to use her brand, 'L’Instinct Paris'. Ranged against her were LVMH and its army of lawyers, who argued that this purveyor of creams would eclipse Givenchy’s brand, L’Instinct.
During those two years Samira R. exhausted herself with desperate letters to Bernard Arnault and with legal appeals, simply so she could sell her creams at local markets. She was defending an original idea: 'Instinct' is a French word, and the French language hasn’t yet been bought by Bernard Arnault. But it was only upon receiving our questions, sensing that an article on the issue was in the offing, that the luxury group decided to respond to Samira R.
The day after our email, Givenchy became more accommodating, and a financial settlement was due to be reached - they even withdrew their appeal with the INPI. And then, disaster struck: the article was published, and LVMH rowed back from their financial offer. “I received a curt email reminding me that the appeal [against the intellectual property application] had already been cancelled and that they now considered that sufficient,” explained Samira R.’s lawyer at the time. “There was no longer any talk of an agreement of any kind... The reality behind this whole case is that they were trying to stop the article from being published.”
Despite this pressure, the cosmetics creator, who was on income support at the time, did not bow to it and gave her consent for our article to be published anyway. If a low-paid worker can do this, defying LVMH and its entire empire to help bring the truth to light, we have no doubt that the company’s own executives will do the same.
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- The original French version of this op-ed can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter