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- Bernard Arnault slammed France’s proposed 2% wealth tax.
- Arnault, who is worth about $170 billion, said the tax would “destroy the French economy.”
- The economist behind the tax hike retaliated, saying Arnault’s comments “depart from rationality.”
Bernard Arnault, France’s richest man and the CEO of luxury giant LVMH, has criticized France’s proposed 2% wealth tax.
French economist Gabriel Zucman proposed the tax, which would be imposed on the ultra-rich with net worths of over 100 million euros, or about $117 million. French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is now under pressure from the Socialist Party to include the wealth tax in France’s 2026 budget.
Speaking to British newspaper The Sunday Times, Arnault said, “This is clearly not a technical or economic debate, but rather a clearly stated desire to destroy the French economy.”
He slammed Zucman, calling him a “far-left activist” and saying that he was using some “pseudo-academic” expertise to destroy the liberal economy.
As of Monday, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index pegged Arnault’s net worth at $169 billion, placing him eighth on the world’s richest list. He once occupied the top spot when his net worth surpassed Elon Musk’s at the end of 2022.
Zucman responded to Arnault’s criticisms in a series of X posts on Sunday.
He said he was surprised by the “caricatural nature” of Arnault’s attacks on him, and the tycoon’s comments “depart from rationality and are unfounded.”
Zucman denied Arnault’s claims that his motives were political in nature. He said he has never been an activist in any movement or a member of any party, and his only work was as a researcher and teacher. According to his faculty profile, he teaches at the Paris School of Economics and UC Berkeley.
“Whatever you may think, the time has come to subject billionaires to a minimum tax rate,” Zucman wrote on X, calling it an “instrument of justice, social peace, and budgetary stability.”
Reuters reported that in 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron scrapped France’s decadeslong wealth tax, which was imposed on individuals with assets above 1.3 million euros.
Protests broke out in France last week over the French government’s proposed budget cuts, with protesters carrying “tax the rich” banners in support of Zucman’s proposed tax plan.
Zucman and representatives for LVMH did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
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