Since 2002, French luxury goods and clothing group Kering, whose brands include Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Stella McCartney and Balenciaga, has avoided paying a total of about 2.5 billion euros in tax payments on earnings, mostly to the detriment of the Italian public purse but also that in France and in Britain, according to confidential documents obtained by Mediapart and analysed together with its media partners in the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) journalistic consortium. Yann Philippin (Mediapart), Vittorio Malagutti (L'Espresso) et Esther Rosenberg (NRC Handelsblad) report.
The iconic French designer, who died in 2008, is the subject of two forthcoming films by French directors. One production has the full backing of Saint Laurent's former companion and business partner Pierre Bergé. The other does not and was nearly cancelled, despite being widely regarded as the more artistically interesting of the two films. As Emmanuel Burdeau argues, the story raises important issues not just about Bergé's influence in the world of French cinema but about the ability of any director to make a film involving famous figures without their approval and backing.
