The French business sector is dominated by the already wealthy, and ordinary French citizens pay the price.
“ ‘Entrepreneur’ is a French word, but it by no means applies to the kind of people who are getting very rich in France today. ”
Despite this, two Parisians now top the world’s richest lists. One is Bernard Arnault, who as of late September 2023 was worth about $183 billion, according to Forbes, making him the world’s wealthiest person after Tesla’s Elon Musk, and the wealthiest person in France. The other is Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, whose fortune Forbes values at more than $82 billion, making her the richest woman in both France and the world.
Bettencourt Meyers, 70, is heiress to the L’Oréal empire and Arnault’s female equivalent. She was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the western Paris suburb, close to where L’Oréal OR, +1.99% LRLCY, +1.02% is based. Bettencourt Meyers still lives in Neuilly and maintains a strong loyalty to her home city. For example, after Notre Dame Cathedral was ravaged by fire in 2019, she pledged some $226 million to repair it.
“ Neither LVMH nor L’Oreal provides an entreprenuerial model that might translate to ordinary people. ” The problem is that neither of these great multinationals provides a model that might translate to ordinary people. On the contrary, LVMH staff tend to sell products they will never be able to afford themselves . Many of the new businesses that receive government support in France don’t extend far beyond selling small-scale Brittany pottery and the like. Much of it is low key and has no hope of generating the kind of income that, say, a Silicon Valley equivalent will amass.
Multinationals such as L’Oréal and LVMH export capitalism brilliantly, but conditions for doing good business in France can be a lot more restrictive. It costs a lot of money to hire staff, and there is little encouragement to business-minded people who want to break out of housing estates or isolated rural areas.
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