Bernard Arnault, one of the world’s wealthiest men, with a net worth of $156 billion (£116 billion), has weighed into a bitter debate raging in his native France over the proposed imposition of a 2 per cent tax on the country’s mega-rich — those with assets over €100 million (£87 million) — calling it “an offensive that is deadly for our economy”, reports The Sunday Times.
Political support has been growing in recent weeks for a call by Gabriel Zucman, a prominent left-leaning economist, for the levy, which he claims would raise €20 billion from taxing about 1,800 of France’s richest households — enough to cover almost half of the hole in the government’s finances that Sébastien Lecornu, the recently appointed prime minister, needs to fill.
Arnault, who is the chief executive and chairman of LVMH, the parent company of luxury fashion brands Louis Vuitton, Dior and Tiffany & Co, said: “This is clearly not a technical or economic debate, but rather a clearly stated desire to destroy the French economy.”
In a statement to The Sunday Times, Arnault, 76, dismissed Zucman as “first and foremost a far-left activist … who puts at the service of his ideology (which aims to destroy the liberal economy, the only one that works for the good of all) a pseudo-academic competence that is itself widely debated”.
The mooted introduction of a wealth tax is rocking the French economy. A poll by the French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop), shows 86 per cent of people back the proposal. President Macron’s appointment this month of Lecornu as prime minister has made a wealth tax more likely. The opposition Socialist party, whose votes Lecornu needs to pass his budget, has demanded adoption of the tax as a precondition for their support.
In France, Zucman has become a household name. Last Thursday, half a million people took part in a general strike dominated by calls for greater social justice.
“Zucman Tax. Ultra rich, pay up,” read one banner being carried towards the Place de la Bastille.
Zucman, 38, is a former student of Thomas Piketty, “the rock-star economist” who first made waves in the 2010s with his work on economic equality. He explained his philosophy in an interview last week in his office in the prestigious École normale supérieure, a modern building in southern Paris.
Dressed informally in a white T-shirt, the father of three had pedalled through the gathering crowds across the city. He did not seem especially pleased to have his name on the proposed tax — or the banners. “I would prefer it if it were called the Bernard Arnault tax,” he added, speaking in English he perfected while teaching at the University of California, Berkeley.
“People understand the basic reality that the super-rich don’t pay enough tax,” he continued, arguing that the current tax system creates “a kind of snowballing effect for billionaires”.
Read more of this report from The Sunday Times.