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Europe's wealthiest man testifies at French spy chief trial

Bernard Arnault, 75, the CEO of French luxury goods group LVMH, appeared in court on Thursday as a witness at the trial of former French intelligence director Bernard Squarcini who he hired as a security chief, and who is accused of using state agents to counter a blackmailer targeting Arnault, and also when mounting an intelligence-gathering operation targeting journalist and leftwing MP François Ruffin.

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

Bernard Arnault, the luxury goods tycoon, has rejected accusations that he asked French intelligence agencies to intervene against a blackmailer who claimed to have compromising photographs of him, reports The Times.

Arnault, the richest person in Europe and the chairman and chief executive of LVMH, which owns luxury brands such as Dior and Louis Vuitton, told a French court that he was “absolutely not” aware of the involvement of intelligence agents in the case dating from 2008.

Arnault, 75, who is the fifth-richest person in the world, was giving evidence at the trial of Bernard Squarcini, the former director of the French internal security agency, the country’s equivalent of MI5.

Squarcini is facing 11 charges, including influence peddling and embezzlement in connection with claims that while he led the intelligence agency it was employed for Arnault’s benefit and that after he retired he set up a security firm that organised underhand operations on behalf of LVMH.

Nine other defendants are in the dock, including a former judge, a retired senior police officer and a high-ranking interior ministry official.

Activists on the left say the case has exposed hidden ties between France’s most powerful company and its spy agencies. All the defendants deny wrongdoing.

Paris criminal court has been told that when Squarcini, who is nicknamed “the Shark”, led the agency between 2007 and 2012, he ordered spies to identify a man seeking to blackmail Arnault and claiming to be in possession of photographs of Arnault and a woman with whom he was having an affair. Prosecutors say that in so doing Squarcini was placing the agents at the service of a private individual, which is illegal.

Squarcini, 68, rejects the accusations, saying that the blackmail plot raised national security issues given Arnault’s power, wealth and status.

The court has also been told that after stepping down from the agency, Squarcini opened Kyrnos, a private security firm that received €2.2 million to work for LVMH. The work is said to have included an intelligence-gathering operation targeting François Ruffin, a left-wing MP.

Squarcini is alleged to have persuaded his contacts in the police and in intelligence to provide him with information on Ruffin, who was making a documentary film, Merci Patron! (“Thank you, boss!”), about workers losing their jobs at a subcontractor for LVMH. Squarcini is further alleged to have orchestrated a plot to “infiltrate” Fakir, Ruffin’s small left-wing newspaper. He denies those claims too.

Read more of this report from The Times.