France already had the best player in the world in football with Kylian Mbappé (yes, yes…). And in rugby, in the presence of Antoine Dupont. It now has the richest billionaire on the planet. Bernard Arnault (and his estimated 211 billion dollars) is in first place in the annual ranking of billionaires Forbes, whose 2023 edition was released on Tuesday. France even doubles as among women too, a Frenchwoman dominates: Françoise Bettencourt Meyers (80 billion).
We could almost speak of generation, because five French men and women appear in the top 50. It is certainly weak in the face of the American steamroller – 25 citizens in the Top 50 -, but France is the second most represented Nation, ahead of the China (4), Germany and Hong Kong (3 each) and India (2).
The tidal wave of luxury
To explain this “performance”, just look at the profile of this top French quinté. Everything goes through luxury and cosmetics. Bernard Arnault (1st worldwide) is the founding president of LVMH. Françoise Bettencourt Meyers (11th in the world and 1st woman), the heiress of L’Oréal. François Pinault (28th worldwide) is the founder of Kering. Finally, Alain and Gérard Wertheimer (41st ex aequo) are the owners of Chanel SA. The first non-luxury French billionaire is the boss of Lactalis, Emmanuel Besnier, but he “only” ranks 71st in the world.
However, “the luxury market has never been so healthy,” says Aline Pozzo di Borgo, teacher and consultant specializing in the sector. A luxury “where France is the leading market, and where historic brands are still highly coveted,” she continues. While the health crisis has led to a serious brake – which is continuing – for certain areas, for example the automobile, “luxury has on the contrary been able to take advantage of Covid-19 and renew itself. The rise of e-commerce is particularly beneficial to it, and explains these record results. »
Sectors at half mast
Principle of communicating vessels obliges, this tricolor success is also explained by the loss of speed of sectors where the French are not. The place at the top of Bernard Arnault, for example, owes as much to the good performance of luxury as to the bad patch of the GAFA or high-tech. Thus, despite these 211 billion dollars, he could not have competed with Elon Musk in 2022, who accumulated 219 billion. Jeff Bezos, third this year and second in 2022, lost 45 billion in that time frame.
But sectors are not everything. French billionaires are also flourishing due to rather lax taxation, according to economist Thomas Piketty: “French billionaires pay almost no income tax compared to their wealth! Recent studies show this very clearly. It is time for the French government to publish each year the amount of tax paid by the main French billionaires – or at least give at least the top 10 and 100, just to be transparent on the issue. »
A docile state with billionaires
A bitter observation shared by Camille Herlin Giret, researcher at the CNRS and specialist in wealth, heritage and tax inequalities: “While received ideas speak of a France where money is not welcome and where the rich are overtaxed, the tax policies aim, on the contrary, to tax billionaires little, as this ranking shows. »
For the researcher, wealthy people are little affected by income tax, since their wealth comes less from a salary than from assets and the holding of shares. Wealth tax has been “replaced” by the real estate wealth tax (IFI), but levies much less: 1.67 billion euros in 2021 in France, according to the Directorate General of Public Finances, against 4 2 billion euros for wealth tax in 2017, the last year before its abolition.
There remains the corporation tax. “But it is inefficient. Many subsidiaries of large groups are located in particular in tax havens, ”supports Camille Herlin Giret. Conversely, “the State has given significant aid to large groups, in particular the Research Tax Credit (CIR) and the Tax Credit for Competitiveness and Employment (CICE). We don’t have so many ultra-rich people without encouraging their creation. »