Why the world’s second richest man ends up in a shit storm over a million dollar donation Study: Nearly half of large companies are victims of cyberattacks

France’s rampant inflation is also hitting charitable organizations such as the Red Cross, which expects an annual deficit of €45 million. The ‘Restos du coeur’, the restaurants of the heart, can no longer afford the high food prices in their more than 2000 distribution points in the country: they are missing 30 million euros. The private association founded in 1985 by the legendary comedian Coluche therefore appealed to the public for donations.

Not entirely unexpectedly, the richest Frenchman, Bernard Arnault, donated the largest amount. The Master of a luxury empire LVMH with brands like Dior, Louis Vuitton, Bulgari or Tiffany, the second richest man in the world after American entrepreneur Elon Musk, had his two sons Antoine and Frédéric hand over a check for 10 million euros. Aurore Bergé, Minister of the Family and Solidarity, officially thanked the charity; the Arnaults said they “supported a large public interest association that has been helping the most vulnerable for nearly 40 years.”

Arnault himself, who had already donated 200 million euros to the reconstruction of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019, did not comment. Other reactions dominate social media. “You should reject this money because it was stolen from the working people,” was a slogan on X (formerly Twitter), followed by, “The rich, pure products of financial capital are responsible for the misery.”

The left party of the ‘insoumis’ (inflexible) was particularly outraged. “Mr Arnault pays only 18 percent of his personal wealth in taxes in France, he has money in tax havens,” said MP Alexis Corbière, whose party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon had previously described the LVMH boss as a “parasite”. Corbière went on to say that he was “against the most powerful organizing a PR operation on the backs of the poor”.

Rich vampires

Green leader Marine Tondelier called the super-rich “vampires” and added that she favored “a France without billionaires.” Other politicians calculated that Arnault actually donated only a fraction of the 10 million, since in France two-thirds of donations to charities are tax-deductible. The Arnaults subsequently noted in a communiqué that they had waived all tax benefits. That LVMH maintains a total of nearly 200,000 jobs and pays 4.5 billion euros in taxes annually to the French tax authorities, was not mentioned.

There were isolated positive voices in the traditional media, such as the editor of radio station RTL, Alba Ventura, who explained: “I don’t understand the whiners. If someone gives 10 million, just say thank you.” The moderate parties, on the other hand, are silent. The views of the “indomitable people” on such financial issues are more common in France than you might think. Former Social Democratic president François Hollande once said categorically: “I don’t like the rich.”

Is the gospel to blame?

As the sociologist Olivier Galland explained in the conservative magazine Le Point about the Arnault Affair, the widespread criticism of capitalism in Catholic France goes back to the Gospel of Matthew, according to which a Christian cannot serve the Lord and mammon (money). by the same time. In the Revolution of 1789, the wealthy sinners became outright enemies of the Republic, as evidenced by the chanson about the “aristocrats at the lampposts.” According to Galland, the economic absurdity that the prosperity of the rich inevitably leads to the misery of the poor persists to this day.