270 billion euros. This is the sum that France will borrow on the markets in 2023 to complete its budget. It is also the combined fortune of the richest man and woman in the world. And they are, for the first time in history, both French.
The world ranking of the great fortunes, established every year by the American magazine Forbes, had accustomed us for decades to placing technology entrepreneurs at the top, from Bill Gates to Jeff Bezos, via Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. The latter, boss of Tesla, SpaceX or Twitter, still occupied the top of the ranking in 2022.
This year, it is a handbag and perfume manufacturer that crushes the competition. Given the stock market price of his company on March 10, 2023, Bernard Arnault, the founder and owner of the LVMH group, is at the head of an estate estimated at 211 billion dollars (approximately 192.7 billion euros). It now greatly exceeds Elon Musk and his 180 billion. In eleventh place in the world ranking, the richest woman in the world is Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, heiress of the founder of the L’Oréal group, whose stake in the company is valued at more than 80 billion.
troubled times
The country that dislikes the rich and cherishes equality so much is therefore home to world champions of wealth. And not just two. According to the calculations of Forbes, France currently has just over forty billionaires. Behind the kings of beauty and luxury are other specialists in the sector, such as François Pinault (Kering group), the Wertheimer brothers, owners of Chanel, or Nicolas Puech (Hermès). Exceptions that confirm the rule, Emmanuel Besnier, the boss of the milk giant Lactalis, and the Saadé family, owner of CMA CGM, close the march of the top 10 of the French.
The luxury industry, a great French specialty, is proving its resilience and its capacity for development in these troubled times, both in the West and in China. L’Oréal announced on Tuesday April 4 the purchase of the Australian nugget Aesop for more than 2 billion euros.
Good health in reverse of that of high-tech, whose stock market valuations have melted in 2022. The fortune of the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is almost twice that of the boss of LVMH. This disappointment explains the relative decline in form of the billionaire planet. It now has 2,640 inhabitants, compared to 2,668 in 2022. But it is still very predominantly American and technological. And as long as there are rich people, French industry will know how to sell them dream statutes… and get rich in turn. A form of circular economy, very, very exclusive.