France has edged the UK out of the top five countries with the biggest number of “dollar millionaire” residents, taking the third spot behind America and China, a global wealth report has found, reports The Telegraph.
Often derided as the land of high taxes and red tape, France leapfrogged Britain as well as Japan and Germany with 2.8 million adults sitting on assets totalling more than $1 million (£785,000).
By comparison, the UK dropped from fourth place in 2021 to sixth position last year, with the number of millionaires falling from 2.99 million to 2.5 million in 2022.
France now has 4.8 per cent of the world’s millionaires out of a total of 59.4 million.
The French have a famously ambivalent attitude to wealth, with François Hollande, the former Socialist president, saying: “I don’t like the rich.” He also declared finance “the enemy” and pledged to slap a 75 per cent tax on millionaires – a measure that he later dropped.
However, his successor, Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker, has striven to present the country as business-friendly.